Good News and Bad News...

Mostly bad news.... I returned home from my business trip to find out the contractors screwed up a few key aspects of the pizza oven. To the left is how it looks from a distance... without knowing some of the details, you might think it was taking shape nicely. The stone work around the cinder block looks nice and the oven dome is set on top.... but the next blog post will highlight the problems.

One major problem was a MAJOR customer service issue with the contractor. I told the supervisor to be incredibly careful and to follow the instructions to the letter. I told them, before I left, that I was OK with them waiting to do the oven dome work, but they said they could handle it (they are an official dealer for Forno Bravo) and they've done many ovens in the Dallas area. I got home and saw the mistakes and called the owner of the contractor company. It was 5:30 PM on a Friday afternoon when I got home and found the mistakes, so I called him. He basically told me "let's talk about this during regular business hours" and he hung up on me.

I was so furious! That's such inexcusable customer service. I thought when you had your own business, particularly a service business, that you had to cater to your customers, especially when you've screwed up. It got worse from here.... until the next post.

The Cinder Block Structure

Next, the contractors set a cinder block substructure for the pizza oven and counterspace on each side of the oven (approx 3' on each side). The cinder blocks were mortared in place and concrete was poured down the cinder block holes. Then, rebar was set in place. That's a strong substructure!





The contractors started working on it today, then I had to go out of town for work (so I couldn't document the finishing of the cinder blocks).

Pouring the Foundation

This day, the foundation was drying and curing after it was poured. They hand mixed concrete and shoveled it in. The foundation is so deep (4.5 feet!) because the Texas ground can be somewhat shifty. Swimming pools here require thicker concrete walls (and are much more expensive than in other places, as a result).




A look at the foundation and the site of the future patio.

Framing the Foundation

Here is where the crew was framing up the foundation.






Mixing the concrete mix on a large plywood sheet.








You can see the rebar that was set in place.







Pouring the concrete.

Digging out for the Foundation

Here is the initial digging of the foundation. Lots of dirt to be carried away. The foundation is so deep because of our shifty Texas soil. The Forno Bravo instructions for the oven call for a 4 inch deep foundation or so, this one is four FEET. That's the judgment of the contractor. This thing isn't going anywhere.

I had some issues with the crew not orienting the hole in the exact right direction. They had to come back and dig out a little more to rotate clockwise about 10 degrees or so. I wanted it facing a certain way so you faced it coming off the old patio toward the oven.