My first post on this site. I am about to start building a Cortile Barile on a wood frame made from pressure-treated 4x4s. The oven base will rest on five crossed beams: 2 parallel along the depth of the base, and three parallel along the with. I am comfortable with the structural integrity of the frame and footers (as is my town’s building inspector). The oven base will be edged with pressure-treated lumber and it will be level so I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. Here is the question, should I apply any kind of adhesive between the pressure-treated frame and the cement oven base? I could use landscape cement. I know that sticks to both rock and wood. I could use nothing. Advice?
Hi Laurence and welcome to the BrickWood forum.
I grew up in the land of wooden covered bridges, and it sounds like you have a very sound under structure planned. It’s good to be working in advance with the town building inspector.
My opinion on the slab is that there is no need to use adhesive. It has sufficient mass to rest on the under structure, and there’s very little an adhesive would bring to the party.
The two givens here are that both the top surface of the beams and the bottom of the hearth are flat (as you’ve said), and that your top surface is dead level.
Slabs on block require a mortar join to seal any gaps between the blocks and the slab.
I’m definitely hoping you will share photos of this as you go along. Best of luck!
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Thank you. Looking forward to sharing photos. Been baking bread in conventional (indoor) ovens for over 50 years. this is a now or never project…and Sunday is always pizza night. Stay tuned.
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