How to Build an Outdoor Pizza Oven Step by Step

By Kyle Isacksen
Updated on June 24, 2024
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by Kyle Isacksen
At 3 feet tall, this oven’s sturdy base accounts for the user’s height.

Beginner builders can learn how to build an outdoor pizza oven step by step for less than $300 and a few days’ work.

Natural building techniques bring us into closer connection with the raw materials on our lands and at our feet. The project I most often recommend to beginner earth builders is a cob pizza oven. Building one isn’t so big a feat as to feel overwhelming, nor so small you’re tempted to hurry through mindlessly – and working with cob employs several common skills that you can transfer to other projects.

This pizza oven design is the one I teach in workshops. It results in a large, well-insulated, versatile, and high-performance oven that’ll last for years and can easily meet the needs of a pizza party or a day of serious baking. After you have the materials on hand, you can build the oven in a couple of weekends with the help of a friend or two.

Materials and Costs

Expect to spend a few hundred dollars on this project, but total costs can be next to nothing depending on how you source your materials and what tools you already have access to. Cob is a mixture of clay, sand, and straw, so you’ll need to find about a half-yard of each. Clay soils are common, but if you don’t have clay on-site, you can often dig some up to truck to your site. The same is true for sand. We live in the high desert, so a short trip onto public lands with a pickup truck and shovel gets us all we need. Before you head for the hills, check what kind of permits and fees are required in your area for procuring clay and sand from public lands (and be clear you’re sourcing for a non-commercial use).

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