Should I place a Venturi-type burner above or set in to the oven floor?

I am putting a Mattone Barile Grande together for natural gas and wood. My burner is 3 inch diameter coming from bottom floor of oven. The manufacturer said a lot of people use his burner and that it sits below the floor not protruding above the floor and that I should make hole 4 inches around. I am worried that this may be a source of heat loss. Any thought on that? It is a Venturi gas burner. Ward Burner Model MR100 as seen at: Ward Burner Systems - Power Burners, Raku Burners, and Kilns. I only plan to have one burner. Where should I place this burner? I also want to have option to add wood. How do I keep wood and ash out of burner? To remove or take out burner will be a huge ordeal. Thoughts???

It’s hard for me to answer this question as I have no experince w/ gas burners (only wood).

We have directed numerous customers to Ward Burner Systems as they seem to build a quality burner, but again, I just don’t have any experince w/ gas burners at this time.

We will add them to the line-up in the near future!

If you were a betting man, would you place it in the back center or back left or right corner? The flame should go high enough to hit the dome and spread out, per Ward burner. They said that the best place to enter the oven is from the bottom. He said use a 4 inch hole for a 3 inch burner. That leaves too much of a space for air loss in my opinion. Thoughts?

From what I know - and have seen from customers submitting images and videos -

It looks to go in the rear of the oven - right or left side. I’m right handed, so I tend to put everything on the right side of the oven… so I’m assuming I would want the burner on the LEFT side of the oven (so I never push food or even the metal peel into the burner and damage the burner).

Also - it would be easy to make an “L-shaped” S/Steel metal guard to sit in front of the burner (I’m sure they are on Ebay or Amazon)… but just some sort of guard that protects the burner while keeping ash out of the burner area.

A 4" hole w/ a 3" Burner - 1/2" of space on either side… sounds correct.

Burners are on my To-Do List (#342 of 1429) and I’m asking ALL of our customers that pursue Burners to document their success and suggestions - so we can share their information w/ other BWO builders out there.

AND…

All,

For what it’s worth…Im installing the Vamparossa Natural Gas model right now! I can’t wait to fire it up. I’m writing a “diary” of the installation on the Photo and Video page.

Dwayne

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Hello Dwayne -

I’m super excited to see your Photo / Video Diary as you proceed! We get lots of inquires about the Vamparossa burner - so having you onboard w/ your project (and suggestions / recommendations) will be a welcome addition!

Thanks for offering and sharing this info!

My pleasure!! Having pored the heath…the waiting is agonizing!!! It’s also supposed to be 114F all week so…waiting (inside) is the least of my worries. I can’t wait to see if my burner cut-out form held up!

Dwayne

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