A: Way way WAY more than originally planned and more than I'm willing to openly admit to on the internets. There were some mistakes made, and bumps in the road, and about a half dozen design changes. I will say this though... you can have your own backyard pizza oven for somewhere between $1000 and $6000. Mine was a somewhere in the middle.
Q: What does your wife think?
A: She rocks. And she's getting new countertops next year. (I'm trying to talk her into a stone countertop... will be easier to make dough)
A: Lets put it this way... Shipping of the oven and the cement pad put me over the original budget.
Q: What kind of design did you consider and changes did you make.
A: The original plan was to build an Alan Scott brick bread oven whose dome resembles a barrel chopped in half. We ended up going with an modular igloo design. A cob oven was never seriously considered.
Q: How long does the oven take to heat up?
A: Between an 1.5 and 2 hours.
Q: How long does it keep it's heat?
A: It slowly cools over 2 days and we're working on ways to utilize that heat. So far we've used it for seasoning cast iron, cooking a Boston Butt, bread, and a pot roast.
Q: How long does it take to cook a pizza?
A: In the wood fired oven it takes about 2 minutes after the oven is fully fired. On the Grill at 550 ° it takes about 7 minutes. Electric oven takes me about 12 minutes at 425° F if I remember correctly.
Q: How do your parties work?
A: For parties with more than 12 people(or 2 batches of dough), there is myself and 3 other people making pizzas and we serve them buffet style. One making the dough(Usually my mother in law Judy), one doing the toppings, and one to help me in keeping pans clean, slicing pizzas, and to keep people from standing too close behind me. The pizzas are made in my workshop and brought out to me on a wooden peel to put in. Our second firing we did 21 pizzas in 45 minutes. By comparison, on the grill we were doing 8-10 in an hour. In the electric oven it was 4 in an hour.