Making an earthen oven. UPDATED 11/9!

So we decided that we wanted to build an earthen oven for the folks at Poste Rojo. They agreed that it would be a nice feature to add to their tree house hostel, however, they wanted it on the steepest, rockiest place up near the TOP of the hill... And so, the next day, construction began, here are all the pictures up to the point where we finished the base for the actual oven itself. More pictures of the oven are to come.


Step 1, level a retardedly steep rocky hill.


YES, level


Step 2, excavate the hill above the oven platform for a place to stand.


Step 3, add lathe to keep the cement together and solid...


Step 4, bring cement up the 300ft vertical hill, by hand...


Step 5, mix the cement for the platform, and level out the mixed cement.


Dry, and ready for cinder blocks.



Step 6, Bring up enough cinder blocks to make a box 6' by 6' and 4 blocks high... That was more than a day alone...

Step 7, Cement posts into the inside corners of the box to use for the roof.

Step 8, Fill the newly constructed box to 16" below the top with rocks from a nearby pit, carrying them over using rice sacks.


Step 9, Bring enough lava rock up from the bottom to leave only 6" of space from the top of the box. The lava rock is very airy, and good for insulation.


Step 10, Fill up to 2.5" below the top with fine sand... also brought up from the bottom.


Step 11, Lay bricks in a salmon bone pattern and level as you go!!



Step 12, eat a cookie pie Kathy made in a different oven because this one isn't freaking done yet!!



Step 13a, Build a wet sand dome on top of the bricks so that it has the shape you want for the inside of your oven

Step 13b, Cover the sand dome with wet newspaper so that when you put the clay on the sand does not stick to it.

Step 13c, Get 7 Nicaraguans to help you build wet clay "bricks" and mold them to the outside of the newspaper covered sand dome until all you can see is clay.

Yes, we know there are not any pictures of the inbetween steps, we were very hectic while getting it done because this all had to be done in one day... yikes!



Step 14, give it a couple days to dry, then cut a small doorway, and subsequently a larger one.



Step 15, Dig out the sand!! Very scary, but very satisfying.


Step 16, Stare at the rediculous pile of sand you just hauled out of your new oven.



Step 17, Start a fire in the oven to dry it out, small pieces of clay might fall off of the interior, try to ignore that, but if it seems really bad, you might want to give it some more slow drying time... We did.

So this is it! fired, and basically ready for a pizza. We left the day after this picture, so we will have to see what Chad and Fred do with the oven, and give everyone an update in December. It still needs a door and a chimney, and basically 2 more layers of clay to be complete, but the general structure is there.