Brick Estimation Form New And Improved

Well during my break time I tackled revamping my Brick Estimation Form. I am now officially calling it version 2. I did this to make the form more flexible so that it could be used for more complex situations.

Version 2 can estimate the bricks for straight walls, straight foundations, curved walls, curved foundations, vault ceilings, full and partial domes. The domes and vaults can be ceilings or stand alone structures. The curved walls can be anything from full circles to a fractional section used for rounded corners. Any fraction of a circle can be used in combination with the straight walls. This will allow you to have the flexibility to estimate the needed bricks for almost any shape or design that you can think of.

I have also added the option to include arches in the walls. The form will calculate the number of bricks for the arches with the bricks having the ends exposed. It will then also calculate the left over area inside the arches and estimate how many bricks that would be and subtract that number from the total number of bricks estimated.

All of the totals will now be displayed on the first tab. Each category of wall type also now has it's own tab in order to enter the information on. All the information will be calculated and then displayed on the first tab. The brick and mortar joint information is entered on on the first tab and is required for all of the calculations so I would recommend entering that information first. This holds true for the wall thickness as well. The wall thickness is measured in bricks. So if the wall is 1 brick thick then enter 1. If the wall has bricks laid width wise with 1 brick laid lengthwise against the end count that as 1.5 bricks. From the examples you can see how to adjust the wall thickness even thicker if needed.

The desired heights of the walls and foundations are also entered on the first tab. I say desired heights because you have to work with the thickness of the bricks and thickness of the mortar joints. I added a calculation to each of the straight and curved categories so that you can see what the actual heights would be based on your desired height.

As you can see from the picture above I have added some color coding as well to make it easier to know where to enter the information and easier to quickly read the results.

I am again making the forms available in the Excel (Windows) format and the LibreOffice (Linux) format for download at the links below. I have also removed the links in my previous post for the version 1 form. I have also removed the version 1 files and am only making the new version 2 available.

Brick Estimation Form 2.0.xls

Brick Estimation Form 2.0.ods


I am providing this form free for personal use just like I did before however, after doing some research I decided to include the following terms as a nonnegotiable contract and terms of use which is enforceable under international law. Here are the terms "The downloading and use of this form constitutes consent of anyone downloading or using this form to the following binding agreement. This form is free for personal use, use by non-profit organizations, teachers, students, trainers or any other group with the purpose of helping others learn about earthen building or assist in earthen building on the condition that this form is not being used in any way to make profit. Any government agency, person, business or corporation wishing to use this form for profit or in conjunction with making profit from it's use shall be required to donate the time and materials to host a free (no fee) workshop (or training session listed by any other name), open to any and all people interested, focused on building an earthen structure (domicile or home) and during which a complete earthen structure will be built. At the end of said workshop the structure will be donated to a needy family or individual person free of charge. This agreement is valid under international law may not be changed, amended or affected by any implied contracts without the express written permission of the author of this form. This form may not be changed or modified in any way  without the express written permission of the author of this form.".

I wrote the terms in this manner as a way to help encourage businesses, corporations and governments to help get the earthen building information out there to help people. The more people learn about this kind of building the better off we'll all be. I hope this small step may encourage other people to do similar things. I figure if enough of us are all doing things to help and teach others while getting through to the businesses, corporations and governments that they need to help as well and that we will be holding them accountable then I think we could be successful in affecting some positive change.

Cement Mixer Reborn

I said in my last post that I was going to work in the cement mixer. Well that turned into a much larger job than expected. I found some cracks in the base of the mixer barrel so I had to remove the barrel and disassemble it in order to get to the cracks. While the barrel was disassembled I cleaned all of the pieces of hardened concrete and lime/clay mixture out as you can see in the picture to the left. The problem here is that now I had lots of exposed metal. So after I was done welding, grinding and cleaning I decided I would give the

barrel a coat of paint to protect the metal.So I gave the inside of the barrel a coat of paint as you can see in the picture. I only had black high temperature paint or gloss white Rustolium paint. So I went with the gloss white. I gave everything a couple of light coats and then one slightly heavier coat before spray painting the other sides.

So the next step was to flip everything over and spray some light coats on the the side. After letting it dry for a while I again sprayed a slightly heavier coat. I left all of the pieces sit and dry for a couple of hours

After letting everything cure and dry for a couple of hours I reassembled the mixer barrel. I also gave all of the bolts and nuts a couple of light coats of the white paint as well. Then I left the barrel to dry and harden.

While the mixer barrel was drying I moved and stacked all of the bricks in the kitchen area so they would be close to where the were going to be installed. That may not look like much but, oh man was I exhausted after getting all of those moved and stacked. Each brick weighs between 8 and 10 LBS and there is a total of 462 bricks there. That's a lot of weight but, I got them all moved.

I did have to replace the bolts, washers and nuts that mount the mixer barrel to the mixer. The old ones were bent, stripped and rusted bad. So with those replaced I bolted the mixer barrel back on to the mixer. I also used some silicone caulking to seal the barrel mounting bolts and nuts both inside and on the outside of the mixing barrel. Since the old original rubber gasket was destroyed when I got the mixer. The silicone makes for a water tight seal so nothing drips out the end and makes a huge mess. I also added a bead of silicone between the mixer barrel and the mounting plate to make sure everything was sealed. Well with a new coat of paint and everything put back together I should be ready for rest of the bricks, floors and counters now. Yes I do realize that the spray paint will only last so long on the inside of the mixer barrel but, it gives the new metal some protection from rust. Beside, it's not very hard to give the inside of the barrel a new coat every so often. Considering the cement mixer was free to begin with I have no complaints. Yes I know I didn't paint the rest of the cement mixer. There was 1 major reason for that. I only had enough paint for the mixer barrel. I know pretty simple reason but, an extremely accurate and understandable one. So now on to more bricks.

Still More Bricks

Well we reached the end of day 3 of making the foundation bricks. Well we successfully laid up another 167 bricks today. So that will bring our total foundation bricks made to date up to 429. That's the good news.

The bad news is that my boys just don't get laying the bricks in straight lines.

You can see the row of bricks on the right side. That was the first row they laid. This was after I had already talked to them about where to lay the bricks down and in what direction. There is a time to be creative but, when you're trying to get the most efficient use of space is not the time to be creative. For those of you who have teenagers you know what I'm talking about.

So after laying the first row and having yet another discussion they corrected hings and began laying the second row on the right. Not too bad of news but, this is were it starts.

The second part of the bad news is that I ran out of lime. I had 2 50 LBS bags of lime slacked and ready to use for this and I ran out. As it turns out since I was adding lime by volume rather that weight I needed more than I thought. So I have to get some more lime and slack it for at least 24 hours before I use it. That shouldn't be to hard since I ran into another issue as well.

The third part of the bad news is my other issue. For those of you that have read my blog from the beginning know that when I got the cement mixer the barrel of the mixer failed very shortly after I started using it. I had to take it all apart and weld the barrel back together to fix the failure. Well after all of batches of adobe/cob that I have mixed it seems that a weld or two has started to crack. So I think tomorrow I'll get the lime and put it in the can to slack it and then work on the cement mixer over the weekend. That way the lime has time to slack and I can use the down time to tear apart the cement mixer, check everything and make any repairs needed. This way I'll have my cement mixer back in top shape and ready for the next 1000 plus bricks that I need to make.

I'm planning on making making concrete counter tops as well plus an adobe floor so I'll need that cement mixer running. I'll post more about what happened to the cement mixer so that anyone else using one will know what to watch out for.

More And More Bricks

Like I said at the end of my last post a mixer paddle in the cement mixer broke and was going to have to be welded before we started this morning. So this morning I went out and started to take out the broken mixer paddle pieces. To my surprise I found that the second mixer paddle had also broken away  from the bottom mounting tab. So with that I pulled both of the mixer paddles and their mounting tabs. Then it was on to cleaning them up, aligning them and welding them together. Just to be on the safe side I added a little bit of reinforcing weld on the 1 mounting tab that had not broken. Then I remounted the mixer paddles in the cement mixer. I had to run some errands and we ate a late lunch after I got back.

I ran a bunch of straw through the shredder also and filled a large black contractor trash bag full of the shredded straw so I wouldn't run out. Yesterday I ran out of straw on the last batch. I had just enough for the batch but, that was it. So today I shredded more to make sure that I wouldn't run out.

So by the time we actually got started it was about 3:30 PM MST. Since we (Charles, Jason and me) had all been working yesterday and all day today we decided to mix and lay up bricks for about 2 hours.

So here are all the bricks laid up from day 1 and day 2. In total we've laid up 262 bricks. Yes I know my boys can't lay bricks down in a straight line. We've honestly only worked on laying up the bricks for about 5 hours total between both days. That's an average of over 50 bricks an hour. Not too shabby for just 2 of us at any given time. I've been running the mixer and setting up the mixes and either Charles or Jason have been laying down the bricks. Maybe we'll spend a few more hours laying up the bricks next time. It should only take 1 or 2 more days to make all of the foundation bricks.

Laying Up The Foundation Bricks

So here we are again making bricks. As I said at the end of my last post I had saved all of the clay soil that I had dug out of the foundation trenches. I piled all of it up by the mixer to use it for making bricks. I figured why go haul the clay soil from the other side of the property when I had so much from digging the foundation trenches.

Ok we (my son Charles and I) got ready to start this morning and I found that my shredder / mulcher wasn't working. So I had to work on the shredder. I ended up having to replace the switch in order to get it working. Once I got the shredder working I was ready to start making bricks. Yeah, that didn't happen. I found that one of the mixer paddles in my cement mixer had broken. So I had to pull out the welder to fix the broken mixer paddle. Once that was done then we could finally get to making the foundation bricks.

So I did a little math to decide how much slacked lime to use. In order to get the 5% - 7% of lime in the mix to be able to get lime stabilized adobe bricks I needed about 1 gallon of the slacked lime. I used a coffee can that was just under a gallon. So I had to use 1 full can of lime and a second can about 1/4 of the way filled. I also found that if I added some water first then added the lime before anything else, then the lime would get fully mixed into the water. Then I added the sand to the mix. This allows for the lime to be thoroughly and evenly mixed throughout all of the adobe mix. Once the line and 2 buckets of sand were mixed I would then add 1 bucket of the clay soil and 1 bucket of the shredded straw. I kept mixing until everything was mixed well adding water only as needed to keep the consistency of the mix. I wanted the mix to be fairly stiff and sticky like frosting but, with just a little slump so that it would release from the mold.

Even after all of the issues that we had to deal with in the morning we were able to get 141 bricks laid up in the afternoon. We called it quits about 5:30 PM MST. I mixed 7 loads in the mixer and Charles pressed the bricks into the form to lay them down. You can see Charles standing with all of the bricks in the picture.

The one downside to the day was that on the last batch I mixed up the mixer paddle broke again. So tomorrow morning I'll have to pull the pieces out and weld them up then reinstall the mixing paddle before I can start mixing more batches tomorrow. My thanks to the gods for the inspiration that lead to the creation of the electric wire feed arc welder. Don't leave home without it! After the repair it'll be back to making bricks.

Foundations . . . Just Dig It

So in my last post I had estimated that I would need 614 bricks for the foundation. That works out to 4 courses of bricks and bedding joints. That makes the foundation 14 inches from the floor level. I ran string lines at the floor level and dug down measuring 14 inches. That puts the top of the foundation at the same level as the floor.

You can see in the pictures the string lines that I put up. I used these as a guide to measure from so that I can dig my foundation trenches at a consistent 14 inches. Anywhere that I didn't have a string to work from I was able to use a level to keep the depth consistent.

You can see in the following pictures all of the foundations dug out to 14 inches deep from the level of the floor and checked with a level to make sure the bricks can be laid level and evenly. Do to the slope of the ground the trenches closet to the house are much deeper than the trenches close to the large oven. There are a coupe of trenches where I will have to add more to the bedding to bring them up to the correct level. I'm not worried about adding to the trenches on the end because whatever I add will be underneath the level of the lower floor. I still have to lay out the rest of the lower floor but, I already know that it will be high enough to lock in the foundations from the upper floor.

I decided to go ahead and dig the full foundation all the way around all of the counters. This just makes the counters stronger. I'll be infilling the open space in the bottom of the counters plus 1 or 2 bricks so that the floor level inside the counters is higher that the main floor level. That way when I fill in the main floor there won't be any way for the foundation to shift.

As you can see in the pictures my dogs and cats are having lots of fun with the trenches for the foundations. I had to train my dogs as I was working to not cross the strings that I had put up. My cats however thought it was just a new playground for them.

I also collected all of the clay soil that I dug out for the foundations. I'll use it to make the bricks so none of it goes to waste.

Also just a quick note. Yes I know it looks like some of the trenches are crooked but, the bricks that I'm using are only 4 inches wide and the trenches are at least 6 inches wide so there is no issue.

Brick Estimation For Foundation Bricks

Well I'm at the point of needing to make the stabilized lime bricks so I can begin building the foundations. I'll use standard adobe bricks on top of the stabilized lime brick foundation. Now comes the part of my frustration. How to estimate the number of bricks that I'll need to make for the foundations. Well I naturally went online looking for a calculator to use. Man was that a frustrating waste of time. All I could find was calculators for bricks of set sizes like red brick or people just saying this is how any you should estimate.

So I decided to put together a spreadsheet that would allow me to enter all of the information to be able to estimate just how many bricks I would need. I'll make the form available for free to anyone that wants to use it. I hope it will help.

It's a very simple and plain form as you can see in the picture but, it works very fast to give you a pretty solid estimate. This form is designed to work with any custom sized bricks. Since we tend to make adobe bricks based on the size we need I thought it was important to make the custom size available in this form.

So what I came up with was needing an estimated 614 bricks. So how did I come up with that? I measured the exposed length of each side in inches. Then I added all of them together to get the total length. I then added the length of the brick at 10.5 inches plus the end joint of 0.5 inches giving me 11 inches. I took the total length of 1661 inches and divided that by 11 inches. I figured that at my deepest point I would need a minimum of 12 inches of foundation. This rounds up to 14 inches for 4 rows of bricks. So I took 1661 bricks divided that by the 11 inches and multiplied that by the 4 rows. I also factored in a few extra bricks in by figuring 5 bricks multiplied the number of rows and then divided in half giving me 10 extra bricks. This gave me a total number of bricks of 614. I also rounded up all the number of bricks so that I would have a few extra rather than not enough since a bricks sometimes break.

I am making the brick estimation form available for download for anyone who might find it useful. I saved the spreadsheet form in 2 formats to make it easier for people to use. The first format is .ods from LibreOffice Calc and the second format is .xls from Microsoft Excel. I used the older Excel version to try and make it more compatible.

Brick Estimation Form.ods

Brick Estimation Form.xls

{These links have now been deactivated. A new enhanced version of this form has now been posted. Please check the post dated April 3rd, 2013 for the links to the updated version 2 of the Brick Estimation Form.}

I have tested both of these spreadsheet forms with Google Sheets as well and they both work. I hope this form makes it a little easier for any brick project that you may have.

Please also take into consideration if you plan to build your wall a brick and a half thick, 2 bricks thick or more and adjust the wall thickness on the form to get the correct estimate. Also keep in mind that this form is designed for walls and not solid filled in spaces such as the hearth of a fireplace or base of an oven. To get a better estimate some changes in the calculations would need to be made.

Also please keep in mind that this form is for estimation purposes and that every design is unique. This brick estimation form has not been designed to estimate circles or domes but, that option could be added if needed later.

Don't Mess With Mother Nature

What a picture! I definitely think that the title of the post says it all. I had planned on laying up some bricks and working in the yard today but, as you can see mother nature had her own ideas. So I will have to wait this weather out before I can get back to making bricks. Hopefully this will be the last storm for a while so I can have the time to get the bricks made.

For those of you who live in other places this picture is proof that even in the low desert it does get cold. I took this picture at just after 1 PM MST. Yesterday it was almost 80 F at this time and today it's only 57 F and dropping. Yes by the way, that is hail failing from the sky and bouncing off of the oven. It's been raining on and off all day but, right now the thunder is rolling and hail is coming down with some extreme force. Ya, I'm not going out in that if I don't have to. We've got winds of around 20 MPH as well. So I'm staying inside today and will probably wait for 1 or 2 days for everything to calm down and dry out before I go back to making bricks. I'll post more then. I hope everyone else out there comes through this storm with little to no problems.


Follow up to the first half of the post.

By 3 PM the temperature has fallen the 46 F and we're having wind gusts hitting about 50 MPH and the ground was so saturated that we have small lakes 3 to 4 inches deep in places. The winds again ripped off more shingles from the the roof. So I'll have to replace the missing and damaged shingles after the storm clears. The yard is a mess with debris blown all over. So there's a lot to clean up. So it may be several days before I get back to making bricks and doing more work on the outdoor kitchen.

You know, besides all of the storm damage and debris what really ticks me off about this storm is that it knocked all of the flowers off of both of the nectarine trees and the apple tree that had just started to bloom earlier this week. So that means we may not get much fruit from them this year. Dang, I was really looking forward to the fruit this summer. Like I said in the title, don't mess with mother nature.

It's weather like this that makes us need a roof to protect the adobe and cob that I'm using to build the kitchen. Without a roof with this much rain it the kitchen wouldn't last very long. This is why I am planning a roof. If you are building a kitchen of you own I would highly recommend a roof for you too. Keeps shade in the heat and keeps the rain off making your kitchen usable most of the year and make it last for years to come.

Sand, Sand And More Sand

Wow what a day! As you can see in the picture I just finished unloading sand. This was my second trip to the wash. I want to make a comment about the weight of sand. I know we don't think about it much but, sands weighs a lot. I borrowed my friend's truck this time to get the sand so I didn't have to make a bunch of trips. A big word of cation here, pay attention to the truck tires! I didn't know that the air pressure in the tires was low. So I got less than half of the truck bed loaded with sand and then noticed the tires were flattening. Oh that's bad! So I very quickly stopped loading the truck with sand and then slowly drove the truck home. After I emptied out the first load I checked and added air to all of the tires.  Then I went back and got a second load of sand. This time I filled the truck bed about 2/3 full, just to be safe. The truck drove much better and handled the load of sand much better with the extra air in the tires. So just remember to check your tires before you go down and start filling up the bed of your truck.

I am going to start laying up my foundation bricks and then more adobe for the rest of the counters. I have more clay earth in my yard than I could ever know what to do with but, sand is a different story. So I go down to the closest wash and get my sand. For those of you wondering if this is legal I called both the county and ADOT to ask if I could collect the sand. I was told that as long as it wasn't put there for use by the county or ADOT and it was on the side of the road then yes it was legal to collect.

Since the local wash flooded really bad over the winter it placed large amounts of clay and sand on the roadway. That sand and clay was then scraped off of the road and just placed on the side of the road. When I say large amounts I'm talking about piles 4 feet high for about 60 feet on either side of the road. For making adobe bricks this is a gold mine. I think I could build an entire house with the sand sitting on the side of the road. Just to put it in perspective for you, the picture of the pile of sand was dug out of a section of 1 pile. I dug a hole into the pile about 5 feet wide and less than halfway through the pile.

So with that I figure I should have access to plenty of sand. With that in mind my next step is to begin making the foundation bricks. My foundation bricks will be the standard adobe brick clay, sand and straw mix but, I will also include some slacked lime in the mix. By adding the lime, clay and sand together that is the recipe for the classic Roman cement. I'll be adding the chopped straw for additional strength in the bricks. This will work well as a foundation and be water proof. I used the same type of bricks as the foundation bricks for the outside wall of the base for the large oven. They have held up and worked great. As I already mentioned before I will use red brick for the entryway and step so as to protect the floor from wear or damage on the corners.

I want to point out that the mortar that I will be using for the red bricks and the lime stabilized bricks will be a clay, sand and lime mix. This will allow all of the bricks to bond well. I will switch to the standard clay and sand mix for all of the other bricks.

Now I need to measure the perimeter so I can figure out how many lime stabilized bricks I'll need, then it's time to begin making bricks.

Moving On To The Next Step

Well I figured out the locations the water lines and drain line. Yes I said drain line. I have decided to omit the second sink. Why you say? Well as I stood and looked at the staked out layout of the kitchen I had a realization. Why do I need 2 sinks outside? I have a sink inside the house and a sink outside should be just fine. So with that thought in mind I nixed the second sink. I am however going to add a hose valve spigot on the outside of the wall of the corner counter on the right side instead of the sink. I will also be running a water line and adding another hose valve spigot in the area between the smokehouse and the hot tub.

You can see in the picture that I've laid out where all of the water lines and drain lines will go in red. I haven't dug them deep at all because I only need the trenches dug down just deep enough so that the drain can maintain a descending angle of 1/4 inch over 4 feet. Our frost line is very shallow here. I have some irrigation lines in my hard that are in places only a couple of inches deep and they have never frozen. Now if you are building in a colder area and you are using water lines make sure to insulate them and install them below the frost line. The last thing you would want is to have a water line freeze and burst underneath you floor.

My plan is to add a tee (T) to the drain pipe under the sink in the inside kitchen from the sink in the outdoor kitchen. That way I can use the same drain pipe without having to add more. If you were building a kitchen in an open area or an area away from any drains I would think that you could treat the water from the sink as grey water and run your drain to trees, bushes or other plants that you anted to water. If you do that just keep in mind not to put anything down the drain that would hurt the plants.

I have also spent time at my local home improvement store and I have decided to use PEX tubing for the hot and cold water. I can buy the tubing in roles of 100 feet for about $27.00 US as opposed to about $20.00 US for 10 feet of copper tubing. Since keeping costs down to a minimum is part of my focus I decided that the PEX tubing is the most economical option. I will admit however that I would prefer copper and that I would use it if I had the extra money. For the money the best option does seem to be PEX tubing and since it is rated for both indoor and in ground that should work. One word of caution about PEX tubing. It is sensitive to UV (Ultraviolet Light) light. So you can't use the PEX tubing in a place where it would be exposed to sunlight. So you run the PEX tubing inside walls, under your house, under the kitchen floor in the ground or even up inside the counters but, you have to attach and convert to a solid pipe, like a short piece of copper, that can be exposed to sunlight and the elements anywhere you want to have a hose valve spigot or any other exposed fixture or connection.

I have seen other people use PVC, CPVC, steel pipe, and even the black poly irrigation pipe. You can use whatever you want and whatever is available to you. For reasons of cost and availability I chose to go with the PEX tubing but, you can choose anything that works for you.

The Layout

Well I finished clearing out the kitchen space as I had posted and then started figuring out my layout for the kitchen. Man was that a pain! As it turned out my digitally measured layout file was originally done with Microsoft Visio software. Well here's the rub, when my computer crashed the last time while I was running Windows and I had had enough. So I decided to completely convert over to Linux and I've been running Ubuntu Linux ever since. However it turns out that all of the information and measurements stored in the Visio file is now no good to me since I can't find a Linux application that reads my Visio file.

So in order to get any usable measurements I printed out the kitchen plan layout images that I have on the blog, got my tape measures and pulled out my old drafting tools. I took some reference measurements from the house to the large oven. Then used the architectural rulers to determine the measurement units to use on the printout so that I could convert it to inches and feet to use on the ground. This was a pain since the scale of the printout wasn't exact anymore because, when I printed it my printer automatically scaled the image up to the size of the paper. So I had to some estimating to do as well. I figured what the heck, it's my kitchen so I can make adjustments.

You can see my rough layout in the picture. I left a 4 foot walkway between the fireplace and corner counter to make it nice and easy to walk through. I also left 4 feet between the island and the house for the same reason. I left 3 feet between the right side of the island and the fireplace/counter and 5 feet between the back of the island and the barbecue/ wood stoves. I wanted enough room for 2 people to be able to walk around in the cooking area. It's hard to see in the picture but, I also marked the space for a 1 foot front overhang for a cantilevered counter top bar on the island.

In this picture you can see where the level of the house foundation is. This is going to be the same height of the floor of the kitchen all the way back to the last wood stove. I'm going to put a step in there to lower the floor level for the large wood oven and smoke house. Since I'm going to build up I won't need to dig much for foundations as the floor will act as one large foundation. The front exposed side will have a small foundation of lime stabilized adobe bricks to provide water protection to the outdoor kitchen and floor. Thankfully when it rains here only the top few inches get soft so 1 or maybe 2 layers of the lime stabilized adobe bricks would be the minimum. I'll probably go with 3 layers of the lime stabilized adobe bricks just to be on the safe side, maybe.

For the front entrance way and for the step down by the wood stove I plan on using some recycled red bricks. I figured by using these it would protect the floor since the red bricks would take the brunt of the foot traffic on the edges of the 2 step downs. Since I happen to have a lot of red brick to recycle I figured this would be a good use.

Just a quick note about the red bricks. A friend and I took his truck out to the desert looking for some rocks to line his driveway with. However what we found was a pile of red bricks that someone had pulled up from a patio and just taken out to the desert and dumped. We loaded up his truck bed with all of the brick. There was so much that we completely filled a standard 4 foot by 8 foot truck bed. I found the urbanite (broken up pieces of concrete used as large flat stones) for the base of the large oven the same way. Just going out to the desert and finding the stuff that other people just took out and dumped. I've been told by other people that they've found cinder blocks taken out and dumped as well. So you never know what you'll find if you go look. I figure I saved about $400.00 US by salvaging all that red brick. I can deal with that. If you plan on building something like this my suggestion would be to keep an eye out. I figure that anytime you can save money, clean up the environment, reuse materials and get something very usable out of it is the ultimate in green building.

I still have to move out the old hot tub to layout the smokehouse and figure out what the level the lower floor is going to be. I'm also planning on running arches around the outside of the kitchen as support for the roof over the kitchen and ht tub area. I figure the arched walls will also function as a partial wind block. In the summer time here in Arizona that is huge when we get the monsoons and sandstorms. It would make the outdoor kitchen even more usable during the summer and provide some privacy screening which I know my wife would like.

So that's where I'm at so far and what my plans are. I'll post more soon.

Clearing Out The Kitchen Space Update

So just a quick update on my clean up progress. You can see in the picture to the left that I got all of the stuff moved as well as all of the pavers. I have to say that it took more than I realized to move everything.

I spent the 2 days moving and hauling stuff to clear it all away but the worst part was pulling up the pavers. Wow, first off I didn't realize how much the ground under the pavers would act as a glue. Man were those pavers stuck down. It took a lot of force to pull them up. I also forgot just how heavy those pavers are, especially when they are stacked up. Thank god for heavy duty dollies!

The only issue that I'm worried about is that the hot tub will have to be moved. I think it may be too close to the oven to fit the smokehouse in between. I guess that's ok because the hot tub next to the house is going to be replaced with the one you can see in the distance in the picture anyways. Next I'll start measuring everything out and begin laying things out with stakes and strings.

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.

Lessons In Lime

I realize that I have not posted anything for some time. I have been busy building fences, working on our property, repairing storm damage, repairing our car and repairing my father in-law's Bobcat. Needless to say I've been very busy. So I haven't had time to do much on my outdoor kitchen since my last post. So with that said on with the show.

I found that the layers of lime wash painted on as a protective layer works but, only lasts through one rainy season. I have had to reapply the lime wash after every rainy season. When the rain hits the lime coating it causes the it to lift and separate in sections from the outer dome layer. Then as it dries those sections crack and with some help from the wind or anything that rubs them they get pulled knocked right off. Now if you like that look of old adobe buildings you'll love the way this looks but, it's not very protective.

So I've learned through trial and error that you have to have a base first to get the lime wash to adhere well. What base am I talking about? Well after doing much research on adobe structures I found that they would apply a lime stucco consisting of slacked lime and sand. Traditionally the lime stucco was applied in three coats. The base coat was made with medium and fine sand and slacked lime in a mixture of 2:1 sand to lime or 1:1 depending on the recipe. The outer coat of adobe or cob has to be roughed up so the stucco holds well. This was traditionally done with a hatchet. The second coat of stucco, or brown coat as it's called, is mixed at 1:1 with fine sand and slacked lime. The top coat of stucco is also the mixed the same as the brown coat although some recipes called for 1/2: 1 sand to lime.

Ok so why add all this to the outside of the oven? Well it's easy to explain. The sand mixed with the lime creates an extremely strong and thicker outer shell. The lime wash can then be colored and painted on the outside as upkeep and decorations.

The painted lime wash just isn't tough enough for the weather here in the Arizona desert without that lime stucco base. This is a lesson that I learned the hard way.

So my plan is to scrape the entire oven then roughen the surface so the stucco holds well. Then stucco the entire oven with the lime stucco. After letting the stucco cure for at least a few days I'll give the oven a coat or two of the lime wash.

The additional benefits of the lime stucco are longevity and the ability to heal any cracks.

So this is going to be my next step over this summer. I might get more of the kitchen done too if everything goes well.

More Whitewash . . . Again

Well we've had several freak rains and a couple of nasty sand storms. Plus we had a mini tornado that ripped off about a 10 foot by 20 foot section of shingles off of our roof and pelted them against the oven. Overall I have to say that the oven faired pretty well. During the sands storms and the tornado the oven was just beat and pelted with everything that wasn't tied down but, most of the whitewash was intact.

I was honestly surprised at how little damage there really was. Most of the damage was from impacts and from the heavy flash rains we had. The damage was for the most part limited to the whitewash and a few spots where the whitewash came of and exposed the adobe. I think all of the damage can be repaired with fresh coats of whitewash. So I mixed up some new whitewash and applied a fresh coat.

There was a lot of cracks and chips from the weather so I think I'll need several coats. I put on one coat today to just try and fill and bind down all of the chips and cracks. I'll apply another coat tomorrow to fill some more and see what else I'll need to do.

I know it took me a while to get to this since my last post but, between the weather and having to help move my in-laws this was the first chance I had to work on it. I'll get some pictures on here after I get the next coat on tomorrow.

The good news about all of this is that the whitewash did it's job and protected the adobe underneath. I was real happy to see that the whitewash applications have been worth it overall in both appearance and protection.

Coats Four And Five Plus Pizza

Well the plan was to whitewash on Monday with coat number 4. Yeah that didn't happen. Just too many things to do and more rain. So by Thursday I finally got a chance to put on coat 4 and followed up on Friday with coat 5.

As you can see in the picture above the whitewash is really gotten brighter and evened out. I really wanted the last coasts on so if I had to make any repairs after using the oven on Saturday I could. Saturday we had some family here plus we invited some friends out to make pizzas.

This oven cooks pizza amazingly well! We make up a very large batch of pizza dough and then cut it down into dough balls for each person with sometimes a few extra and a large pot of pizza sauce. We split up the toppings so everybody brings a few.  This way there is plenty for everyone and everyone can make their own pizza.

In the picture above you'll notice the darkening around the door and chimney. There is actually an active fire in the oven when this was taken. I think the smoke staining adds character to the oven. I like to fire the oven between 1 and 2 hours before I'm going to cook pizza in it. The extra time allows for the heat to be absorbed and radiated evenly. I also wanted the oven to be warmed so any moisture left in the outer layers or in the thermal layer was evaporated away. Amazingly after this oven was fired for 10 hours the outside was just finally getting warm. It stayed cool to the touch during the entire pizza cooking. I kept checking about 10 hours later the top and upper portion of the dome was getting warm. The lower portions of the dome and the base were still cool o the touch.

I want to mention that the edges of the counter did get some damage from the rain. It seems that the water lifted up the whitewash where the water drained. The lime wasn't fully cured I think so was able to lift small sections. I applied new whitewash and smoothed it down with my fingers. I also applied more boiled linseed oil to the counter grout and this time I also added it to the edges of the counter. I am trying this to prevent any further damage on the edges. I'm still using mineral spirits to thin out the boiled linseed oil. I think I'll add one more coat of the thinned out linseed oil before I apply a top coat of just the straight linseed oil.

I want to say a word about cracks in the dome. As the oven was heated some expansion cracks appeared on the outside of the oven. My plan is to warm up the oven again and use some lime putty to fill the cracks. The reason I decided to use the lime putty was so it would become part of the outer skin and be able to bond to both the cob plaster and the whitewash. The bonus here is that it will also lend itself to making crack repair easier in time as lime turns to limestone the calcium carbonate crystals will grow and can even self repair small cracks.

I also waned to make a note about the whitewash mix that I used. For the first 3 coats I used a 5 gallon bucket of water mixed with 2 large coffee cans of lime putty. This made for a very thin and penetrating whitewash. The last 2 coats I cut the water in half. So I only used half of a five gallon bucket of water but, the same amount of lime putty. This seems to work very well since the first coats penetrated well and the last 2 coats helped to even everything out and provide a good thick skin of lime. I'll probably have to apply a few more coats after filling all of the expansion cracks.

Coat Number Three

Well I finally managed to get coat number three of the whitewash on. We had storm after storm roll through and then I spent a few days sick. This really messed with my planned wait time of three days. So I was able to get the third coat on yesterday.

Before I whitewashed the oven again I inspected it. I found some damage to the whitewash skin. I had a tarp covering the oven in hopes of protecting the new whitewash when the storms were coming in. It turns out that the wind whipping the tarp against the oven was what had done the damage. The damage was visible due to the whitewash being flaked or scratched off to exposed the adobe beneath.

While applying the whitewash I made sure to paint on several coats to the damaged areas. I applied a full coat including on the grout of the bricks and around the bricks and hinges. I noticed that the fresh whitewash when applied is still being absorbed into the adobe. When applied you can still see the blues and browns appear in the areas where the adobe is still absorbing and it stays white where there is no absorption.

After the coat dried I could see the white begin to even out but, there is still some areas that will need more. I'm planning to add another coat tomorrow to thicken the skin and continue to even out the coat.

One quick note here about applying these coasts of whitewash. I keep these coats thin so that if any of the whitewash can be absorbed it is. I have worked with many different types of coating and in almost all cases the end product of multiple thin coats is stronger than one or two thick coats. I know it takes longer this way but, in the end this provides the best finish possible.

More About Whitewash

My original plan was to apply one coat of whitewash per day for four or five days but, I thought about it and double checked some of my references and decided to wait a few days between each coat. This will allow the calcium carbonate crystals time to begin forming and make for a solid waterproof surface.

I should also make mention of why I chose to use such a basic whitewash mix. Most recipes call for the addition salt, flour paste, milk or glue. I chose not to use any of these for the following reasons. Salt will slowly dissolve the sand, stone or cement and I didn't want to deal with that. The flour paste needs the salt to keep from molding and since I didn't want to use the salt then the flour paste was out. The milk and glue was a simple choice, I didn't have enough so I decided not to use them. Besides I want the whitewash to be able to accept a color coat when the kitchen is done and if I used the other ingredients the color coat may not adhere well.

Since I decided to wait a few days between coats I decided to work on cleaning up the exposed bricks that I had gotten the whitewash on. I used a fine wire brush and cleaned off the bricks trying not to remove or damage the grout between the bricks. Once I did that I used a small paint brush to repaint the grout between the bricks with the whitewash.

I also spent some time working on the counter. I thinned down some boiled linseed oil with mineral spirits and used the small paint brush to apply the linseed oil to the grout between the tiles. I was able to get three coats on the grout to soak in. I'll add more coats of oil tomorrow. I did have to smooth out the oil that flowed on to the tiles. You can see in the picture below how the counter is shiny and you can see the reflection of the oven in the counter. I'm not sure if it'll be quite that shiny when the oil dries, but it will make the counter waterproof.

Tomorrow I'll check on the progress of the oil curing and add more to the grout. I'll use the thinned down oil a couple more times then switch to straight linseed oil for the last coat or two to get the best finish. I use the thinned out linseed oil first to get better absorption and penetration into the grout.

Also just an after thought about applying the whitewash. Expect it to not be white at all when first applied. For me the where areas where it picked up the clay it turned brown and tan but, in other areas it looked blue, purple and even black. However as you can see in the picture above it dries very white and the second coat got considerably brighter. Even though there is still some spots where the clay tan color comes through I thinks the next coat or two will completely cover them and may even brighten the white more if that's possible.

Back To Base

So it was time to get back to working on the base. We were ready to begin plastering so we can seal the oven with the lime whitewash. I enlisted the help of my daughters Chrissy and Alexa. I showed them how to press and work the cob mix into the spaces and partially smooth it out. We learned early on that it helped a lot to keep the trowels clean and wet. If the cob mix is too dry that will cause a problem too as it will become sticky and as you drag and press it will stick to the trowel and pull off.

I also modified my standard cob mix. Instead of using 2 buckets of sand and 1 bucket of clay earth I added an additional 1/2 bucket of clay earth. I also used a screen to sift the sand and the clay earth. I found a screen that has about a 1/8th inch opening. That's larger than a window screen but, smaller than the screen that I found at Home Depot or Lowe's. I found the right size on the screen top that we had for an aquarium. It filtered out all of the larger stones that would be fine for the bricks but, not for a smooth finish. I also filtered the clay earth that I'm using. I wanted to make sure that all of the organic matter was removed along with any stones or large clods that wouldn't let me get a nice plastered surface. I also found that adding extra water to the mix so that I could get the consistency of about soft icing was the best to use.

This modified mix gives you a nice dense and hard outer shell that once combined with the lime whitewash should be completely waterproof. With our monsoon rains here we need to be waterproof.

My two daughters working away. Chrissy on the left and Alexa on the right. They got the hang of it pretty quick.

You have to love their concentration since they didn't even know that I was taking pictures of them.

As you can see they made pretty good progress. I helped throughout the day but, I have to say my girls did a good job and did most of the first layer of plastering on the base.

You can see in this picture the bricks of the base. Also notice that they look dark. This is because you have to wet the surface of the bricks if you want the plaster to bond otherwise it cracks and peels off as it dries. I made some test patches and found this out very quickly. 

They finally had noticed that I came back and took more pictures but, they were good about finishing the plastering. They did very good and had fun too and that was good to see.

So the above three pictures are of the finished first plaster layer. I think the girls did an excellent job.

At the end of the day Chrissy is taking a well deserved break. As I was taking her picture she said she was dirty and was proud of it.

I'm Back With A Vengeance

I realize that I have not added a new entry to this blog since the beginning of May and it is now almost the end of August. Well let's just say hat it's been one hell of a summer. I had finally gathered all of the materials to build our fence and since we really need to keep the neighborhood animals out of our yard I had to work on that. I was tired of the dogs attacking our cats and the goats eating our trees as well as to stop people from trying to walk, ride and drive through our property. So you can see why the fence had to take a priority. Then our car broke down. Not once or twice but, four times this summer. I had to rebuild the transfer case, drop the gas tank and replace the entire sending unit, rebuild the manual transmission, replace the leaf springs, replace the battery cables replace the O2 sensors, replace the ignition key cylinder and the ignition coil pack. Then the last time it broke down one of my son's and I had to push the car out of a major intersection and while doing that I blew out my back. It took me about a week and a half to recover from that.

So as you can tell I have had a pretty busy and painful last few months but, the good news is that while my daughters were here we did manage to get some work done on the oven. I have also been able to get some work done on the oven since my daughters left and my boys went back to school.

So in order to catch you up to where we are now in the construction of the oven I will be adding multiple posts withing the next few days to document everything that has been done to date. So check back soon and see what I've gotten posted and see our progress.