Installation guide

Pompeii Oven Instructions

6. Starting the Oven Dome

Overview

The top of the Pompeii oven is a circular parabolic dome

built from brick. The dome shape is designed to efficiently

absorb heat from a wood fire, to evenly reflect stored heat,

and to reflect heat from a live fire inside the oven down to

the cooking surface.

Photo 6.1 provides a good overview of the dome layout,

including the first chain of upright bricks, the curve of the

dome, and side view of the oven opening.

6.1 Inward dome curve.

To Form, or Not to Form.

There are three fundamental ways of constructing the

oven dome: the first is a free-standing dome, where chains

of self-supporting brick circles are built on top of one

another (Photo 6.2); the second uses a set of Styrofoam

vanes that you cut to your dome profile, place inside the

dome, and then removed after the dome is completed

(Photo 6.3); and the third entails building a dome shaped

form using wet sand, then mortaring your bricks in place

as they lay against the form (Photo 6.4).

Here are three photos showing the different approaches:

6.2 No forms.

6.3 Styrofoam forms.

6.4 Sand form.

Advantages of not using a form for the first 6 to

8 courses:

• It is a relatively easy and very time-efficient method.

• The brickwork is accessible from the inside as the

dome is being built.