The wood-fired oven
A refractory core in a stone shell, insulated to hold nine hundred degrees for pizza and two hundred at dawn for bread. Sized to the household that will actually feed it — from a two-pie hearth to a forty-loaf dome.
The fire table
A working flame at sitting height: gas or wood, stone to the drawing, and a burner ring that lights on the first click at a February birthday. The centrepiece the patio arranges itself around.
The outdoor kitchen
Counters, sinks and the grill of your choosing in stone and steel — running water, drainage and the gas line under the hearth, all permitted, all pressure-tested, all built to be hosed down.
Services & rates
The hearth rates, 2026 season
Footings below frost, gas pressure-tested and inspected, and the cure-and-first-fire ritual scheduled on the day we quote — because a masonry oven is the one purchase in the garden that arrives with its own ceremony. Every number includes the stone, the burn and the lesson.
Wood-fired oven, 36 in hearthfrom $9,400
refractory core, 4 in insulation, stone shell
Wood-fired oven, 44 in hearthfrom $12,900
the forty-loaf dome, bread-night rated
Fire table, gas — 5 ftfrom $4,300
stone to drawing, electronic ignition
Fire table, wood-burningfrom $3,100
the patio campfire, chimney optional
Outdoor kitchen run, per 8 ftfrom $6,800
stone counters, sink, gas, drainage
Stone seating & fuel storefrom $2,200
the wall that keeps the wood dry
The oven that holds its heat
The difference between a pizza oven and a garden ornament is four inches of insulation board under the hearth and a blanket over the dome — the parts you will never see and the reason ours still bakes at dawn. We build the core, wrap it, and only then dress it in the stone your garden asked for.
The kitchen that survives January
An outdoor kitchen dies from the bottom up — frost, drainage and the gas line somebody sleeved in hardware-store pipe. Ours starts below frost with a real footing, drains where the winter wants it to, and carries its gas and water in sleeved, inspected runs. The stone is the last decision, not the only one.
The build, honestly
Footings to first fire
Footing & utilities
Below frost, always — an oven is a ton of masonry and frost heave is patient. Gas, water and drain sleeved under the hearth before the first course, inspected while they are still visible, which is the only time inspection counts.
Core & insulation
The refractory dome goes up in sections, cured slow, then wrapped: insulation board under, blanket over, vermiculite at the throat. This invisible afternoon is why the oven holds bread heat overnight.
The stone shell
Your stone, coursed to the drawing — rubble, ashlar or ledge — with the oven mouth detailed in whatever the design says. The mason who sets it is the mason who drew it.
Cure & first fire
Six small fires over six days, then the big one, lit with you: the door open, the thermometer read aloud, the first pizza on the peel. We leave when the second one comes out right.
A season at the hearth
Fire, scheduled and fed
One calendar, from the footing pour to the evening the neighbours knock. Kindlestone builds twenty-odd hearths a season and lights every one of them personally before the invoice is paid.
Week 1
Footing & utilities
Excavate, pour below frost, sleeve the gas and water, pass the inspection while everything is still visible.
Weeks 2–3
Core, insulation, shell
The refractory dome cures while the stone courses climb around it — the slow parts are the point.
Week 4
Cure fires
Six small fires, one a night, each a little braver. The masonry learns to be hot.
Week 5
First fire, together
The big one — door open, thermometer read aloud, your first pizza on the peel, our crew on the lawn chairs.
Every season
The check-over
One visit if you want it: sweep, seal check, burner service. Most years it takes an hour and a coffee.
We bought an oven and got a holiday out of it. Every Friday since October the street has ended up on our patio — somebody brings dough, somebody brings the argument, and the oven just keeps producing. The morning after the first party I checked it at seven: still two hundred degrees. Still bread-hot. That is when I understood what we paid for.
Two contractors told us the gas line to the fire table was "basically plumbing". Kindlestone sleeved it, pressure-tested it and called the inspector themselves — then built the table around it in stone that matches the house like it grew there. It lights on the first click at a birthday in February.
The outdoor kitchen survived a winter that killed the pergola. Drainage where the frost wanted it, a sink that actually drains, and counters that hose clean in five minutes. Our previous "outdoor kitchen" was a grill under an awning; this is a room we happen to be rained on in.
They cured the oven for six nights and lit the seventh with us standing there like it was a launch. First pizza stuck, second one perfect, and the mason stayed to eat his share. There is no version of that evening in the big-box catalogue.
Asked around every first fire
How long does an outdoor oven take to build?
Five weeks, most of it patience: one week for footing and utilities, two for the core and the stone, then the six cure fires. The temptation is to rush the cure, and the cracked domes of the rushed are a whole genre — we schedule the ceremony so nobody is tempted.
Can I cook on it through the winter?
Yes — that is what the insulation is for. Snow on the dome, nine hundred degrees inside, and the bench beside it is the warmest seat on the property. Winter bread nights are a feature of every oven we have built, not a caveat.
What does it burn, and how much?
Seasoned hardwood — a wheelbarrow of it runs an entire pizza evening, and the fuel store we build beside it keeps a winter dry. Gas-assist is available where the county allows it: wood for the flavour, gas for the weeknight.
Does it need a foundation that size?
It needs frost depth and it needs to not settle, because an oven is a rigid ton and the patio is not. The footing is the least photogenic line on the quote and the reason the door still swings true in year ten. We pour it on every build, no exceptions.
Draw it with the mason who builds it.
Photographs of the garden, what you want to cook, and how many Fridays you intend to host — the drawing and the fixed quote come back inside a week, and the first fire is on the calendar before you sign. Cricket Hollow, Wrenville and the valleys between.