Winter Construction

With determination, it's quite possible to build a wood-fired oven in the northeast, in the winter.
Construct a tent over the work-site, and there's no need to wait until spring.

Intimate Contact

When placing firebricks on your concrete slab, you're really looking for intimate contact between the bricks and the slab for maximum heat transference, and that means a hotter floor. Here's how Pat Manley puts it "Firebrick laid dry on the sub hearth is fine if everything is perfectly
flat, so that there is total contact for perfect heat transfer.
But, that is not usually the case.
I use a thin paste of pure clay to assure 100% heat transfer to and from
the sub hearth."
I haven't done this yet, but on my next oven I will.