Monday, March 28, 2011

Outdoor Kitchen

I want to say this now so that I can resolve some questions that I received via email. This project is to build an outdoor kitchen. I will not end the blog posts until the outdoor kitchen is completed. I have received several emails asking me if I am going to end my blog or document building the entire kitchen. I am going to document building the entire outdoor kitchen.

To answer the other emails I received, no I have not used any concrete. I may use some concrete in the future for the counters but, I have not planned on using concrete for anything else. So far I have only used stone, urbanite, clay earth, sand and water. I will be using rock for some of the foundations of the counters but, nothing else.

Yes I did use some wire. I had some wire fencing that I used in the insulation layer to make sure to have reinforcement for any expansion during the firing. This was to make the oven last for years with a reduced amount of maintenance.

The next question that I wanted to answer is yes, all of the clay has been dug from our property. None of the clay, sand, rocks or urbanite has been purchased. We have been digging a cistern and simply using all of the subsoil that has been dug out of the hole.

The last question that I wanted to answer is that yes, I am using a combination of adobe brick and cob in the construction of this outdoor kitchen. The difference between them is that adobe is formed into bricks and sun cured while cob is placed and formed as one mass.

I hope that answered all of the emails that I received. Please feel free to leave comments so other people can join in the conversation as no one has.

Yes I am still working on my transmission and as soon as I am done I will be back to adding posts of my outdoor adobe kitchen project.

Cook, eat and enjoy.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Finishing The Insulation Layer

So it's been 18 days since my last post on March 1st. I had worked in the oven on the 2nd and 3rd and then our car broke down. The transmission went out, so over the last two weeks I've been working on that. This is the first opportunity that I have had add this post. OK so on with the post.

So in the last post I started on the insulation layer. On the 2nd I was able to mix and apply 6 batches. I learned to mix a batch and empty it into the kiddie pool then get the next batch mixing while I apply the batch in the kiddie pool. This worked really well since the cob batches come out better the longer they run in the mixer.


So you can see in the picture that I got the first half of the insulation layer applied. I then cut some wire fencing into strips and wrapped them around the dome. I started to connect the strips together with wire and I ran out. So I used some zip ties I had to finish off the rest of the strips. I wasn't too worried about using the zip ties for two reasons. Firstly the insulation layer should protect them from getting too hot and secondly their only purpose was to hold the fencing strips in place and shape until the rest of the insulation layer sets.

OK so why did I add the fencing strips? Well I added them to give a reinforcement to the insulation layer to avoid any checking or cracking do to the heat expansion of the thermal layer. I left straw sticking out and kept the insulation layer very rough to provide a good bonding surface for the second half of the insulation layer.


 So here is other half of the thermal layer. The one thing that I had to do was to add some extra sand and clay and thin out the mix. I wanted the outer half of the insulation layer to be able to be pushed and worked into and through the fence strips so the insulation layer would get a good bond and be nice and solid. At this point I think I've completely exceeded any and all earthquake standards from California.

You'll notice that I left a gap on the bottom of the outer insulation layer. I did that on purpose. Since I'm going to add the adobe bricks around the base I wanted to have space to work at the top. When the bricks are added I'll go and back fill that gap before the outer layer is put on.

So hopefully over the next week I can get to making the bricks to wrap the base in so I can repair the rain damage. I 'll take pictures for the next post.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Insulation Layer Begins

So yesterday I got ambitious and decided to go outside and get some work done. I looked at the oven and found that the winter rains had done more damage that I had previously thought.



As you can see there was a lot of damage from the winter rains. I learned that you need a big tarp so that everything is covered and well protected. My tarp wasn't big enough which is why there was so much damage. So I needed to figure out how to repair everything and move this project forward. So I came up with the idea of making adobe bricks that would only be three or four inches wide and using them to build an outer case for the base and then fill in any open space with cob. This seems like a good idea so I had to figure out how to get things done by myself since my boys were busy with school.

Well we have just gotten some tools from my wife's folks. In these tools were a cement mixer and chipper/shredder. So I know most of what I've read and seen all says that cement mixers are bad. All the experts agree that working the cob/adobe with your feet is the best way to do it. Well that has been what I believed also until now. Being as I am unable to mix a batch of cob very well and there is no way that I can mix more than one batch I figured maybe the cement mixer was worth a try.

I also wanted to give the chipper a try at cutting up the long straw since much of the straw in the bale is almost a foot long. I saw YouTube videos of people using scissors and blenders to cut up the straw and I knew that wasn't going to work. So I spent about an hour fixing the chipper. Once I got it working I tested how well it cut up the straw. This worked great. I can put a 5 gallon bucket under the blower opening and just fill it up. The straw is perfect for the adobe mix this way.

So I moved on to the cement mixer. I just had to clean it out a little and oil it. So I began by making a test batch. I used the same mix of 2 buckets of sand to 1 bucket of clay. I found that I do have to add just a little extra water than mixing by foot so it can release from the sides and mix well. I just let the mixer run until I thought it was done. Then I checked it and it seemed good so I added the straw. I added 2 buckets of the chopped straw since I needed to add the insulation layer and ran the mixer some more until all of the straw was mixed in.


Here you can see the chipper and cement mixer that I started using. I used the kiddie pool to empty the mixer into and hold all of the cob/adobe mix. This process worked so well that in 3 hours I was able to mix and apply 3 batches of cob with the extra straw. When my kids used their feet to mix the cob it would take about 5 hours to mix and apply 3 batches. Here I did 3 batches by myself in 3 hours.



As you can see in this picture I was able to add about one third of the insulation layer. So now I'm thinking if I can mix one batch and then start the next batch mixing while I'm applying I can almost double the amount of batches in about the same time frame. This should make brick making go very fast, I hope. I actually ran out of sand after the three batches so this afternoon we have to go make a sand run. I'm hoping to get the insulation layer finished and get the bricks started by the end of the week.

The bricks will definitely be the next test but so far the chipper and cement mixer is working better than I could have hoped. The only thing that I noticed is that the cob comes out better the longer it mixes. I will follow up in the next post how well this all works.