Try try again

Once again we are tearing down our Cob Oven. This is the third time, will be the forth time building. However each time has taught us a lot about what not to do.  I see it as like making bread, you can have all the right ingredients and make beautiful nutritious ammunition worthy loaves or melt in your mouth nutritious loaves of wondrous food, or maybe like painting a picture, its all in the wrist right?  You just have to do it again and again an' don't give up. So here we go again.

This time we have learned; that the  insulation layer can NOT be foam (insulation), and that the height of the dome and the door ratio HAS to be correct, which despite how awesome this one looks it is NOT. 

 The good news it that all this can be reused. The mix was a good mix, which held up unprotected in all weather for two nearly three full winters it caved in this spring when the snow melted.  The frustrating news is that I am having a hard time finding pumice, perlite, or vermiculite for the insulating layer. I am thinking I will have to use the old bricks taken from our airtight kitchen wood stove, because when I received the new ones I was shocked to find they were very light, so I am figuring they serve the same purpose in the stove as we want for the oven.  AND the biggy! it has not stopped raining for nearly two weeks, the only sunny day called for is sunday. So the cob party we have planned for Saturday to do the oven is looking dismal. It will be do'able  if it is warm and wet rather than cold and wet like today.