8 Free DIY Pizza Oven Plans: Wood-Fired, Clay & Brick (With Pictures)

If you want to cook an excellent pizza, you need a pizza oven. Pizza ovens cook hotter than regular ovens, which allows you to make the perfect pie you’ve been craving. They can also cook many other items, like veggies and giant cuts of meat. Of course, pizza ovens are often expensive. If you purchase one online, you’ll probably be stuck with high shipping costs.

For that reason, you may consider constructing a pizza oven of your own. Surprisingly, it is pretty simple. The overall design of a pizza oven is very straightforward, and with the proper materials and instructions, you can quickly build one in your backyard.

Below, we’ve listed 8 of our favorite DIY pizza ovens. Some are relatively easy to build, and others are more advanced but would be great as garden centerpieces. Several designs would complement a patio eating area as well.

Top 8 DIY Pizza Oven Plans

1. Outdoor Pizza Oven from HowToSpecialist

If you intend to build a pizza oven from scratch, you will need a wet saw to cut the bricks to size. You will also need at least two dry weekends because you must leave the mortar to dry before completing the rest of the plan. If you’re up for the challenge, this outdoor pizza oven from HowToSpecialist will stand as a monument to your achievements, as it is part of a full outdoor kitchen area complete with its own shelter.

2. Instructables Insulated Clay Pizza Oven Plans

This design uses terracotta tiles as the insulating material under the oven floor. This saves money compared to buying expensive refractory bricks. Using recycled bricks for the oven’s exterior means that you can match the oven to the look of your property if you wish, and it provides a rustic look that is perfect for a garden setting. This design uses a dome shape to circulate heat around the oven.

3. Sunset Classic Adobe Oven

An adobe oven is made from sun-baked clay and shaped like a beehive. This traditional design hails from the American Southwest. It uses a mixture of adobe soil and Portland cement, and like traditional adobe ovens, you use this one by building and burning a fire in the oven before letting it die down and then cooking on top of it.

4. The Cob Oven Project

This is another cob oven design using an adobe soil mix to create the hard outer shell. It also uses a dry-stone wall base, but you will also find convenient guides on modifying the design to your own needs. There’s information on how to dry the adobe too.

The size of your pizza oven will be determined by the amount of room you have, but the guide provides oven dimensions to match your preferred size of pizza for the genuinely die-hard pizza lover.

5. Backyard Pizza Oven Plans from Food Truck Empire

Compared to the last guide, Food Truck Empire’s pizza oven plans are modest in size. However, the oven looks professional when finished, and they claim that you could potentially build it for less than $100 and suggest there’s no reason you can’t build your own for $50, even if you have to source all materials from the local hardware store. There are videos throughout the guide, ensuring that you can replicate their own finished oven design.

6. DIY Pizza Oven by CITYGIRLMEETSFARMBOY

This DIY pizza oven is exceptionally cheap. You can build it for under $150 in some cases. Plus, it works great and only requires materials you probably have lying around. All you need is wood and various pieces of stone, which you may already have!

Out of all the plans we looked at, this is by far the easiest. However, it isn’t necessarily the prettiest. So, if you want one to be the centerpiece of your garden, you may need to look elsewhere.

7. Wood Fired Pizza Oven by Instructables

This wood-fired pizza oven is relatively small. However, it is big enough for a small pizza, and it can be transported and broken down very easily. It is perfect for renters or those that don’t need a permanent pizza oven. We also found it to be very inexpensive. You need wood and some other materials and tools.

8. DIY Cheap Exercise Ball Pizza Oven by David Parker

This one isn’t incredibly hard. However, it isn’t the easiest one on this list, either. You will need some necessary materials and various tools. With that said, overall, it seems fairly simple. The plans are easy to follow, and the pizza oven will last quite a while. It is attractive and looks professionally made. It also uses an extraordinary method to get the correct shape; you must have an exercise ball on hand!

Related Read: 7 Best Woods for a Pizza Oven (With Pictures)

Featured Image Credit: Riedelmeier, Pixabay