Greg's Oven

www.geocities.com/mosesrocket/

Lots of information with photos concerning the construction of Greg's oven. I was particularly interested in the "oven hat." Greg said he found the metal object on an abandoned farm and thinks it's some type of farm implement. Anyway, it keeps the rain off the oven.

Bread Oven Quebec

From
THE BREAD OVENS OF QUEBEC
An excellent but difficult to find book.

This is one of my favorite photos of a bread oven. They really don't come much more pastoral than this. Taken in Quebec, Canada 1898, illustrating the archetypal Quebec clay oven. Elongated beaver shape. Steel oven door. Shed roof. Cribbing oven support.

Bread Oven Chile

www.portlandfood.org/index.php?showtopic=6074

Note the round dome sitting on the square base. With this arrangement, you'll have corners on the base in which to store items. There is also a base extension (it looks like a big step) which allows even more space for perhaps resting a bread or pizzas.

Bread Oven South Africa

www.sekhukhune.gov.za/projects/kamoka_open%20...

I don't know if this is a posed shot or what the women are actually doing. Does it take two people to load the oven or remove the baked bread? Too bad there are not more photos of this.

Stone Oven Hawaii

www.konahistorical.org/tours-oven.html

The oven is a recreation of the ovens that Portuguese settlers built in Hawaii.
I really like the stone theme in the base carried right over the top of the dome.

Decorative Oven Door

www.northbayforge.com/deciron.htm

For bread baking (not pizza making) an oven door is required. You could cobble something very simple together like a piece of plywood with a wet towel to protect the wood while baking, or you could have a door custom made.

pizza oven

www.dadsoldaxe.com/html/static/commercial/

Very nice, solid stone base. Note the metal rim around the oven opening for protection. There's a fairly large crack in the dome, but this is absolutely normal when working with mud. Even with many, many cracks, earth ovens can usually maintain their integrity. I always enjoy seeing the soot deposits on the dome. For outdoor use you generally don't need a chimney.

Earth Oven Adventure

In my opinion (since I wrote it) Earth Oven Adventure provides you with a clear template of all you need to know about constructing your own outdoor earth oven. Even those without building experience will soon be eating the very best breads and pizzas.
Preview the book here: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=775822

Wattle and Daub Earth Oven

www.bbc.co.uk/wales/mid/sites/welshpool/pages...

For as long as I can remember, I've known of the term wattle and daub construction, but it never occurred to me that ovens were often constructed this way. The above photos show the reconstruction of a medieval oven in England. The construction of earth ovens in Quebec also use the wattle and daub method (at least in the past they did), but I often wonder why a sand mold wasn't used instead. Certainly a sand mold would have been much easier to form than a wattle mold.

Zuni Ovens

www.indiansummer.com/trip_to_zuni.htm

Here are a pair of Zuni hornos. Often hornos are built in clusters of two or more. Although these ovens appear to be beat up, I suspect they produce lots of bread. The large oven openings make them very inefficient, but the Native Americans have been creating this style oven for a long time.
I've been told that when the hornos cool down, dogs frequently crawl inside to keep warm. That is a picture I would love to have.