How an Outdoor Oven can Complement the Rest of Your Backyard Space

By Matt Lee

An outdoor oven can truly complement the rest of the backyard space, as it brings another social element to the backyard and creates a memorable experience. Outdoor kitchens and ovens drastically add to a home’s value, as it makes the space great for entertaining. Below, we’ll chat about how an outdoor oven will exactly enhance the rest of your yard. 

Add Aesthetic Value 

When you integrate an outdoor oven to an entire outdoor kitchen space, your home’s value increases dramatically. You can match the texture and finish to your existing home to ensure that it provides a continuous experience as you’re entertaining. This may mean choosing quartz countertop colors that complement the oven and painting cabinets to match the roof and house color combinations. When it comes to the countertops, they truly must serve a dual purpose in functionality and aesthetic value, as they’ll be exposed to the changing seasons and elements. 

Set Your Home Apart

Now, while more and more homeowners are impressed by an outdoor kitchen space, that doesn’t mean that many homes already have them. Having an outdoor oven will set your home apart and give it a unique touch that your neighbors

are unlikely to have. Furthermore, who doesn’t love pizza?! Wood-fired outdoor pizza ovens are quickly becoming more and more popular, as they’re easy to install and can fit into the design of any existing outdoor backyard. You can take the oven a number of ways, whether you prefer a stainless steel, stucco, or brick look (which pairs well with vinyl cedar shake siding). Homeowners love cooking in wood-fired ovens, as they invite a number of cuisine possibilities and can also help you get outdoors during wintertime. 

Increase Practicality

Aesthetics outside, having an oven and/or kitchen space outdoors makes mealtimes more efficient and facilitates seamless entertaining. While many designers are opting for sliding glass panels between the kitchen and outdoor living spaces, constructing an outdoor kitchen instead brings your home to the next level.

An outdoor oven can add tremendous value to your home. With more and more focus on cohesive living spaces, the outdoor oven will invite your guests outside and add a value room to your home. 

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Matt Lee is the owner of the Innovative Building Materials blog and a content writer for the building materials industry. He is focused on helping fellow homeowners, contractors, and architects discover materials and methods of construction that save money, improve energy efficiency, and increase property value.

Masonry contest in April of 2015

The Masonry Heater Association of North America is hosting a contest at their annual meeting in April of 2015 at Little Switzerland, North Carolina. The contest categories are Masonry Heater, Masonry, and Bake Oven. To be eligible to enter the contestant must be a member of the MHA and submit a portfolio of the project at the annual meeting. First, second, and third place winners receive a trophy and their project is featured on the MHA website. The entrant does not need to be present to win. To see the complete rules and entry form and past contest winners visit www.mha-net.org.

Masonry heater workshop April 18-24, 2014

The Masonry Heater Association of North America will present a masonry heater, bake oven, and masonry skills workshop at Wildacres Retreat in the Blue Ridge Mountains north of Asheville, North Carolina April 14 – 20, 2014. 

Masonry heaters are site-built wood-burning appliances that radiantly heat a home with wood.  They are very efficient and use relatively small amounts of wood heat without the use of electricity, gas, fans, or ducts. Wood is burned in a firebox, which connects to channels inside a large thermal mass.  After the fire is out the appliance gradually radiate heat to the living space for many hours without causing large temperature fluctuations or drafts.

The annual meeting and workshop will include hands-on training for a Kachelofen (tile) heater with Jessica Steinhauser and Mario Zauner; A Five Run Masonry Heater with Testing Demo by Doug Hargrave and Norbert Senf; A Finnish Heater for Beginner Masons by Marty Pearson and Jeff Owens; A Bake/Pizza Oven by Pat Manley; a Small Guastavino Vault Demo by Tony Bioundo, a Bricklaying Clinic by Tom Trout and Pat Jenkins, a Grundofen J Loop Masonry Heater with Domestic Hot Water by Eric Moshier, Dan Givens, and Joe Copeland; and A Brick Hammer and Trowel Only: 36” Diameter Clay Brick Dome Oven by Alex Chernov and David Moore. 

Classroom seminars include Google Sketch-up Clinic with Boris Kukolj; What Does it Mean? By the Technical Committee; A Unique and Challenging Heater Built by Jerry Frisch, Masons on a Mission Presentation by Pat Manley, and Untold Stories and Ooops that Confront a Masonry Heater Builder.  The Heater Mason Education and Development class will be held throughout the week.

The annual Design/Build Contest for masonry heaters, bake ovens and masonry will be judged during the week and trophies will be awarded at the final meeting.

An auction will be held on Thursday night, and the Pizza Party, where participants can sample pizza from the wood-fired ovens is held on Friday afternoon.

For more information on how to join the MHA or attend the workshop contact Richard Smith, Executive Director, at 520-883-0191, e-mail execdir@mha-net.org or visit www.mha-net.org.

New Magazine and Radio Show

3/6/2012

I am launching a new radio show in two to three weeks called Wood-Fired, and a new magazine in April under the same name.  Watch this blog for more information to come soon!  My husband is remodeling a building we own next to our office building for a film studio and radio studio.  The magazine is bi-monthly and the radio show will be aired weekly for one hour.  We will be discussing everything wood-fired including chimneys, fireplaces, brick bake ovens, barbeques, firepits, Rumford fireplaces, and cooking in wood-fired ovens.  Professional builders, designers, and chefs will be my guests.  Visit www.chimkc.com for more information.

Outdoor Heating and Cooking

By Marge Padgitt

The outdoor room concept is very popular across the U.S., and Kansas City is no exception. Outdoor fireplaces are definitely all about aesthetics, but they do keep the area in front of them warm, too. Sitting around the fireplace on a cool fall or spring evening is more comfortable and encourages people to stay outside longer. And roasting a few marshmallows for s’mores can’t be beat.

Outdoor fireplaces can actually be built more efficiently than a standard box-style fireplace by building in a Rumford style. Count Rumford created this design in the 1700’s and it has not been improved on since. Instead of a box with straight walls, the fireplace is built with a sloping back wall, angled side walls, and smooth throat transition. This allows more heat to be directed out of the fireplace—about 40% more heat than a box style. So when planning an outdoor masonry fireplace, homeowners may want to consider this method.

Fireplace by Gene Padgitt

Another trend that is becoming more popular is the outdoor bake oven. This is a site-built brick oven or a pre-fabricated Italian oven that can be built alongside or on top of a fireplace, or as a stand-alone appliance. This is a “black” oven, meaning that wood is burned inside the oven where it turns black from the soot, then as the temperature gets higher the soot burns off. The ashes are removed after approximately three hours, leaving a 700-degree oven with even temperatures that are perfect for baking delicious pizzas. As the oven cools, artisan breads, and even whole meals can be cooked. Some folks “fire up” the oven weekly and bake their own breads, which are much healthier than store-bought bread.

My husband, Gene Padgitt is a master mason who builds fireplaces and ovens.  He built us an outdoor bake oven in our own back yard so we could entertain, but it has turned into more than that because now we cook our own breads weekly and often cook entire meals in this oven.

We often have guests over to have fun throwing pizza dough and making their own pizza, and everyone who tries it says that the pizza from the bake oven is by far the best they ever had.

Every Thanksgiving the entire family comes over to have roasted turkey from the wood-fired oven.  The flavor can't be matched in our gas oven!  Now we can't get the family to go anywhere else! 

For more information on outdoor fireplaces and bake ovens please visit www.chimkc.com.

Wood-fired oven built by Gene Padgitt