Thursday, February 28, 2013

Small Design Change

Since my last post I've been slowly working on cleaning up and clearing out all of the stuff that is in my way. While I was working on cleaning up all of the stuff I had a thought, "Why not build my smoker here in the outdoor kitchen instead of further back in my yard like I was originally planning?".

See my original plan was to build an adobe brick smokehouse in the back of my yard. I never really thought about it putting it anywhere else. I have no idea why I didn't but, it suddenly made perfect sense to put the smokehouse with the rest of the outdoor kitchen.

So after thinking about I decided that placing the smoker next to the large oven would be best. You can see in the picture above where I added the smoker.

I plan on using the space between the large wood oven and the body of the smokehouse to build two fireboxes. One firebox will be built right into the bottom of the smokehouse to be used for hot smoking. The second firebox will be built away from the smokehouse to be used for cold smoking.

I figure that by placing the smokehouse in the outdoor kitchen it makes it more accessible and usable. Plus I have plans on using the smokehouse regularly so this will make it much more convenient. Plus having access to both the outdoor kitchen and the indoor kitchen so close should help greatly.

So my next step is to finish clearing the last of the stuff in my way and remove all of the pavers that we had previously put down. Then I can make work on stakes and strings to mark everything out for the final layout before I start digging trenches for electrical and plumbing.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

The Weathering Of The Oven And Whitewash

First off let me say that since I applied the original whitewash in August and September of 2011 we have had some very unusually wet, cold and windy weather. Over the last 18 months we had wind storms with wind speeds measured up to 125 miles an hour, we've set cold temperature records and even set some rainfall records. Basically our weather has been much different and harsher than we've been used to.

I'm making a special point about the weather we've had and the time period because, the weekend following my post "Lessons In Lime" on June 11, 2012 is when I reinjured my back and hip. So I never had a chance to apply the lime stucco as I had planned. That means the only whitewash that was on the oven was the original coats from August and September of 2011 and the added coat in March 2012.

You can see that there is still whitewash on the oven. Surprisingly it actually has lasted and the areas where the whitewash bonded well is still protected well. I tried to use some tarps over the last 18 months to help protect the oven from the weather but, I'm not sure how much good the tarps are doing. Everywhere the tarps were in contact with the whitewash is where the whitewash is gone. There was also other physical damage caused by the tarps flapping and hitting the oven. Also there was damage from the cords, wood and blocks that we used to hold down the tarps.

There was also some cracking on the dome and chimney but, I know that 99% of that was from heat expansion. We've have been using this oven regularly over the last 18 months and at one point we really put it through it's paces. We decided to really stoke the oven. Wow did it get hot!


Ok, so here is where the guy thing comes in. We wanted to see just how hot it was. Now I know that the carbon is burnt off at about 900 F and there was absolutely no carbon in the oven. So we already knew that we were over that. So I had the bright idea to try and place a glass bottle in the oven to see if it would melt. I know that glass softens at about 1700 F to 1900 F and melts at about 2600 F to 2900 F. I figured I could use the bottle as a rough temperature estimate. Well that worked but, the bottle melted. It didn't just soften and slump down, I mean it melted and puddled. I used a poker to try to move it and it was glowing red hot, soft and even sticky. It wanted to stick to the end of the poker and stretch. So I know that the oven got really hot from that and I saw some of the cracks develop that night. On the plus side I can say that it took over 48 hours for the oven to cool down. The oven held the heat amazingly well. Truthfully this little experiment really showed just how hot this oven can get and how well it can hold heat. The downside of the experiment were the expansion cracks on the dome. The cracks are easy to fix though.

The most amount of damage was caused by the water running off of the counter. It seems that when the water would run over the edge of the tile it would get pulled to the wall by the surface tension and undercut the tile edged. Truthfully this  is the most amount of damage on the entire oven. The oven looks worse than it really is from all of the whitewash being flaked off.

Overall I have to say that the oven has weathered very well over the last 18 months. Even with all of the freak, unusual and extreme weather that we have had during this time. I am planning on adding the lime stucco to the oven and a roof covering. Hopefully I can get both done this year. Based on the last 18 months if I did nothing to the oven and just left it as is, I could get several worry free years of use out of it. However after that it would need lots of work. With just a coating or two of whitewash a year I really think the life of the oven could be extended for many years. The same would hold true for the lime stucco coating. This oven if maintained could last for as long as I do, which is what I am planning on.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Clearing Out The Kitchen Space

Well Like I said in my last post, I have a lot of work to do to clear out the kitchen space to get started on the rest of the kitchen. If you're anything like me you have so many things going on all at once there just never seems to be enough time in the day to get to everything. Add to that trying to deal with my injuries and sometimes it just takes me way to long to get to things. For those of you that have teenagers you also know what it's like to try and get things completed. As my father and grandfather used to say, it's like pulling hen's teeth.


As you can see in the picture above I have lots of stuff that needs to be cleaned up and taken care of before I can even start laying things out for the rest of the kitchen. It's also very hard to see in the picture but, there is pavers laid down to make a patio that is about 20 feet by 25 feet. The fun part of removing the pavers is that we laid them directly into the slightly wet soil and they are held down and as solid as concrete. I may have to soak them with water just to get them to release since our soil here dries so hard.

When I get all of this moved out and cleared I'll start the laying everything. Once I get all of the layout done I'll be able to get a rough estimate of how many bricks I'll need to make as well. I'll also layout the trenches for the plumbing and electrical that I want to put in.

I'll post pictures as soon as I get things cleared and when things are laid out.

I'm including this just to show that things happen in life and no matter how bad things look right now you can always make something good out of it, as long as you're willing to do the work.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Back Again... And Again

Well since my last post I haven't quite been able to do what I planned. I had another relapse of this dang flu virus again. I know the doctors have said it could takes as much as 18 weeks to get over this virus but, I really didn't expect it to be that bad. Boy have I been wrong. I hope that I'm finally over it now. Unfortunately we also had another one of our dogs pass away as well. We think she had come down with the same virus that the rest of us had and she just didn't make it. She was a good dog and we'll miss her. We've suffered a lot of loss over the last few months and that's made it hard. We've also had more unusually cold weather and some freak storms since my last post. All of this together has kept me from doing much on the kitchen project.

So my plan is to try and finish the kitchen this year. My yard and kitchen space is somewhat of a mess and has a lot of work to do to the space to build the kitchen. So my plan is to get some pictures of the area as it is now and as we're working. Once the area is clear I'll use strings to lay out the counters and the foundations for them. I'm also going to have to run some plumbing and electrical as well so I'll mark where to trench for those too. I'll try to keep posting my progress with pictures regularly.

I hope the cold weather is behind us so I can work more outdoors without getting sick anymore. I really want to get my kitchen done this year so that I can use it over the summer. I had never expected for this project to take so long but, life gets in the way of our best laid plans. All I can do is to keep plugging away at it and eventually make it a reality. So with that in mind I'll end this post but, with more to come soon.