Authentic Pizza Ovens Builders Custom Brick Pizza Oven

Description

The builders custom pizza oven is the Authentic Pizza Ovens brick dome with nothing on the front: the same fire brick, Rockwool, and refractory cement oven that sits behind the stone arch on a Lisboa or a Pizzaioli, delivered as a bare white dome with an iron door, ready for whatever facade you build. Choose the tall Lisboa dome or the low Pizzaioli dome. Both are $2,395, both weigh about 1,200 pounds, and both ship free as a brick pizza oven dome with the $95 residential liftgate fee at checkout.

A builders custom pizza oven exists for one buyer: the person building the oven into something. An outdoor kitchen run, a stone chimney breast, a brick wall with a wood store underneath, a stucco enclosure that matches the house. APO's finished ovens come with a cast stone or brick front that decides how the oven looks; the builders pizza oven, the custom builder pizza oven in APO's own catalog language, leaves that decision to the mason, the contractor, or the homeowner with a weekend and a pallet of veneer, at $400 less than the finished models.

This page is written for that buyer, whether the search that brought them here was for a pizza oven insert for outdoor kitchen work, a bare dome to clad, or a custom pizza oven build from the footing up. It covers what arrives in the crate, the two domes and how to pick one, the base and the lift for a 1,200 pound oven, how to clad the front and what to leave alone, the iron door, and what a wood fired pizza oven insert like this cooks.

It also compares the dome with the ready to finish and built in ovens from other brands we carry, and explains how the warranty works once the oven is enclosed. If you would rather have APO finish the front, the Lisboa and Pizzaioli pages are where the finished ovens live, and the full brick range is on our Authentic Pizza Ovens brand page.

What Arrives: A Finished Oven With a Bare Front

The crate above holds a builders custom pizza oven, the Pizzaioli dome, exactly as it leaves APO's warehouse in Texas: a white dome of refractory cement over Rockwool over a fire brick chamber, a stainless chimney spout with a damper already fitted at the top, and the door opening framed and ready. The ceramic dish, thermometer, and Ultra Fire kit ride inside the chamber. There is no arch, no cast stone, no brick veneer, and no cladding of any kind; the front is the same cement as the dome, finished flat enough to take mortar.

What is missing compared with the finished ovens is the facade and the Premium hardware. The Lisboa and Pizzaioli Premium models carry a cast aluminum door with a viewing window; the builders custom pizza oven ships with a plain iron door, a Dutch pair on the Lisboa dome and a single drop down plate on the Pizzaioli. Everything that cooks, the brick chamber, the tile floor, the dome shape, the insulation, and the flue, is identical. You are buying the oven and skipping the front.

That matters for how you treat a builders custom pizza oven on arrival. The dome is a fired masonry object, not a steel appliance. It comes crated on a pallet, it wants to stay dry from the day it lands, and it should be set on its base and cured before any cladding goes on, in that order. The sections below follow that order.

Choosing the Dome: Lisboa or Pizzaioli

Both builders custom pizza oven domes share the 39 inch square base plate and the same construction, and the difference between them is the one that matters for cooking: the height of the chamber and the door. Pick the dome by what you will cook, not by what you will clad, because the facade of a custom built pizza oven goes on either one the same way.

Lisboa dome: tall chamber, Dutch door, rotisserie

The Lisboa dome stands 31 inches to the top of the spout with 19 inches of headroom inside over a 31 by 31 inch floor, and its door is 15.5 wide by 12 high, a split iron Dutch pair that opens left and right. The height is the point: a whole bird on the rotisserie spit turns under that ceiling, a tall Dutch oven fits, and the fire is visible through the open door like a hearth. It is the dome for a builder whose client wants to roast as much as bake, and for a kitchen where the oven is also the fire feature.

Pizzaioli dome: low chamber, wide door, pizza first

The Pizzaioli dome stands 26 inches with 15 inches of headroom over a 30 by 32 inch floor, and its door is 19.7 wide by 10.6 high, a single iron plate that drops down. The lower ceiling throws heat back onto the floor faster, which is why APO calls the Pizzaioli its most Italian oven: a 90 second pizza with a wider mouth to work through. It does not take a rotisserie, and it does not need to. It is the dome for a pizzeria style build where the oven is there to make pizza and bread and the front is the design statement.

On price, weight, and the work of cladding them, the two builders custom pizza oven domes are the same. If the choice is still open after those two paragraphs, the tall dome is the more versatile oven and the low dome is the faster pizza oven, and that is the whole decision.

The Base, the Footing, and the Lift

Twelve hundred pounds of builders custom pizza oven, plus whatever you put on the front, plus the counter it sits in, is a permanent structural load, and it is the first thing a builder prices. The oven above sits on a block base with a poured slab cap and rebar rising at the corners for the chimney breast that came later; that is the typical build. The base needs a level, non combustible top at least 39 by 39 inches, carrying the oven's weight to a footing sized for your soil and frost line, and it needs to be finished and cured before the oven arrives.

Height is a working decision on a builders custom pizza oven. The tile floor sits about 3 inches above the base plate, so a 32 to 36 inch base puts the floor between 35 and 39 inches, which is where a peel works without stooping. Under a roof or a pergola, plan the flue path before the base is poured: the spout is 5.5 inches, APO's 38 inch extension and cap are sold separately, and a chimney breast built around the spout needs its own clearance to anything combustible above it.

The lift is the part first time builders underestimate. A builders custom pizza oven comes off the truck at the curb on a pallet; from there to a base it goes by forklift, by a skid steer with forks, by an engine hoist on a plate, or by a crane on a tight site. It does not go by four people and a plan. Have the machine on site the day the oven lands, set it on the base once, and do not move it again. APO's own customer video on this page shows a forklift doing exactly that.

Cladding the Front: Stone, Brick, Tile, or Stucco

The oven above is a builders custom pizza oven, the Pizzaioli dome, dressed by its owner in brick and cut stone with a sun tile over the mouth, a brick chimney breast built around the spout, and the iron door painted black; the wood store underneath is the base. The dome itself is invisible. That is what a custom built-in pizza oven is for, and it is why the copy on this page spends more time on the build than on the oven.

Cladding a builders custom pizza oven is masonry work on a heated substrate, and three rules from APO cover most of it. Cure the oven first: APO's instruction is to run the curing fires, use the oven for a few weeks, and treat hairline cracks with the included Ultra Fire kit before you paint, tile, or clad, so the dome has finished moving before the facade goes on. Use high heat materials: a refractory or polymer modified mortar and a high temperature adhesive for tile, never standard construction adhesive. And round the corners, APO's note on its own drawing: square edges crack first as the oven cycles.

Adhered stone veneer is the most common finish on a builders custom pizza oven, and it has its own body of practice. The Concrete Masonry and Hardscapes Association, which absorbed the Masonry Veneer Manufacturers Association, publishes the installation guide the trade works from: scratch coat, lath where the substrate needs it, mortar bed, and joints. Treat the dome front as you would any masonry substrate that sees heat, and keep the veneer's weight on the base, not hanging off the dome.

What to leave alone on a builders custom pizza oven: the chimney spout and its damper, the door opening and the frame the door seats in, and the thermometer hole beside the door, which the stone build above kept open and fitted the dial into. Do not seal the joint between the dome and the base so tightly that the oven cannot breathe as it heats; a compressible joint at the perimeter is standard practice. And keep the white dome above the facade uncovered, painted with high heat paint, or tiled, but never buried in a material that traps moisture against it.

The Iron Door

The door on a builders custom pizza oven is iron, not the cast aluminum of the Premium models, and APO says plainly that it will rust if it is not treated, especially near water. Owners split two ways. Some paint it: a high heat exterior enamel in black, after the cure and before the facade, as on the brick build above. Some let it go and treat the patina as part of the look, which APO's own copy says many love. Either is fine; leaving it bare and unsealed in a coastal yard is the one that ends in a pitted door.

The builders custom pizza oven door arrives with a factory finish that reads as a brass tone in the photos on this page; that is how it comes, not a choice the owners made. On the Lisboa dome the Dutch pair opens left and right and has a port at the bottom for the rotisserie rod; on the Pizzaioli the single plate drops down and has vent holes. Neither door has a viewing window. If a window matters, the Premium versions on the Lisboa and Pizzaioli pages have it, and they cost $400 more.

What Is in the Crate

Inside the Lisboa dome of a builders custom pizza oven, above, wrapped on the tile floor for shipping: the 10 by 14.5 by 3 inch Portuguese ceramic baking dish, the 0 to 500°C thermometer in its box, and the Ultra Fire crack repair kit, with the chimney spout and damper fitted at the top of the dome. The Lisboa dome also takes the rotisserie spit, which is sold separately; the Pizzaioli dome's lower door has no port for it. APO's 38 inch chimney extension and cap are separate as well, and most enclosed builds need at least one.

For a custom pizza oven build you supply the base, the facade, the mortar and adhesive, the flue above the spout if the oven sits under a roof, and, once it is finished, the cover if the build is open to the sky. The brick pizza oven cover in Standard fits the bare dome before cladding. The five piece starter pack covers the tools, since the custom ships without a peel.

The Finished Build

The same builders custom pizza oven from the base photo, the Lisboa dome, finished: fieldstone over the front and up into a full stone chimney breast, a granite shelf at the mouth, the brass door and thermometer left as they came, and the wood store in the base below. Nothing about the oven changed between the two photos. What changed is that a $2,395 dome became a custom built pizza oven at the center of a stone outdoor kitchen, and the cost of the difference was stone and labor the owner controlled.

That is the arithmetic a builder runs on a custom builder pizza oven. A finished Lisboa Premium is $2,795 with a factory front you cannot change. A builders custom pizza oven is $2,395 plus a facade, and the facade can be $200 of brick and a weekend or $3,000 of cut stone and a mason, in whatever material the rest of the kitchen is built from. The dome is the constant; the front is the budget line.

Cooking in a Clad Dome

Under the cladding a builders custom pizza oven is the same oven as the finished models, and it cooks the same way: an hour to bring 1,200 pounds of masonry to pizza temperature, 90 second pizzas once it is there, and then hours of stored heat that fall slowly through roasting, bread, and overnight beans. The loaves above are baking on the falling heat after a pizza night, the way a brick oven is meant to be used twice from one fire. A clad dome holds heat slightly longer than a bare one, since the facade adds mass, which is a small bonus of the build.

Everything the fire touches in a builders custom pizza oven is fair game: skewers stood in a log beside the flame, a tray of vegetables at the mouth, a casserole in the included dish pushed to the back. On the Lisboa dome a whole chicken turns on the spit through the door port with the Dutch door closed. Wood is 4 to 6 pounds of split hardwood an hour at temperature, and the curing fires before the first real burn are not optional on a masonry oven; they are the difference between hairline cracks and real ones.

The pizza itself is the reason most people build a builders custom pizza oven. The white pie above came off a floor that had been at 800°F for an hour, blistered in 90 seconds, and it is the result a clad brick dome gives that a steel oven does not, because the heat comes from the mass around the pizza rather than from a flame beside it. The Pizza Oven Buying Guide covers the difference at length; our post on built in versus freestanding pizza ovens covers why a built in dome is the one you plan a kitchen around.

Custom Dome, Ready to Finish, or Finished Built In

We carry three ways to put a custom built-in pizza oven into an outdoor kitchen, and they are not the same job. The builders custom pizza oven is a bare masonry dome you clad. The HPC Fire Di Napoli is a ready to finish core: a refractory oven in a steel enclosure with a stainless hearth, gas ignition with wood added for flavor, and a 36 inch double wall stack, built to be framed into a non combustible structure. The Tuscan Chef GX-DL is a finished steel oven with two chambers that drops onto a counter or into an opening and stays as it looks. The table sorts them.

How to read it. The two APO domes are the only true masonry ovens of the four, and the only ones where the finished look is entirely yours; they are also the heaviest and the only ones that need a curing schedule. The Di Napoli is the choice when the client wants gas ignition and a stack that runs through a roof, and the enclosure is already in the plans. The GX-DL is the choice when there is no cladding budget at all and the oven needs to be cooking the day it lands. All four sit in our built in pizza oven collection.

Or Let APO Finish the Front

If the build is a counter and a backsplash rather than a chimney breast, a builders custom pizza oven may be more work than you need. The Lisboa comes in five factory fronts and the Pizzaioli in several more, all on the same domes as the customs, all with the cast aluminum door with a window, and all $400 more than the builders custom pizza oven. Set into a counter with the front proud of the tile, a Premium needs no cladding at all; clad into a wall, the custom is the one to buy.

Cover, Warranty, and the Enclosed Build

APO's warranty condition on every oven it makes reads the same way on the builders custom listings: all ovens require all weather protection from rain, sleet, snow, and fallen leaves when not in use, and APO sells covers for the purpose. On a bare builders custom pizza oven, before and during the build, the Standard brick oven cover fits and that condition is easy to meet. Once the dome is clad and enclosed, a cover no longer fits, and the enclosure itself is the weather protection.

We are confirming with APO in writing how the condition applies to a fully enclosed build, and until that answer is on record we ask every builder to contact us before the oven is enclosed so the answer sits on your order. What is not in question: an oven left bare and open to the sky through a winter is outside the warranty, and a dome clad on the front but open on top wants a cover or a roof.

The builders custom pizza oven warranty itself follows APO's traditional oven terms on structure, materials, and craftsmanship, and the Ultra Fire kit in the crate exists because hairline cracking in the outer cement is normal on a masonry oven and is not a defect. Shipping damage is separate and time limited: note anything on the delivery receipt and report concealed damage within five days.

What to Order With It

The builders custom pizza oven clears our $750 free shipping threshold on its own, and anything on the same order rides free on the same freight delivery. For the build: APO's 38 inch chimney extension and rain cap from our pizza oven accessories collection if the oven sits under a roof or the flue needs to clear a wall, the brick pizza oven cover in Standard for the months between delivery and enclosure, and the five piece starter pack, since no peel ships with the custom.

For the Lisboa dome, the rotisserie spit is the accessory that makes the tall chamber worth having. Both domes take the same firewood, the same infrared thermometer, and the same tools as every other brick oven in our wood fired pizza oven collection.

Buying the Builders Custom From Crustify

Both builders custom pizza oven domes ship direct from the brand's Texas warehouse, crated on a pallet, by freight carrier, curbside. Freight is free; the $95 liftgate fee every oven over 150 pounds carries is the one charge at checkout, and a job site with a forklift or a dock gets it refunded on request. Lead times are confirmed when you order, since APO builds in Portugal and stocks in Texas, and we tell you the honest date before your card is charged. Alaska, Hawaii, and remote sites are quoted before you order.

Contractors ordering a custom built pizza oven for a client can put the client's site as the delivery address and their own details as the buyer; we ship to the address on the order and nothing else. Inspect the crate before you sign, note any damage on the receipt, and report concealed damage within five days. An unused, still crated oven can be returned within 14 days with return freight paid by the buyer, so we would rather answer the base, flue, and cladding questions before you order. Chat and email go to the owner, and financing is at checkout through our financing page, or contact us directly.

Order the cover, the chimney extension, and the starter pack with the dome and they ride free on the same delivery. The builders custom pizza oven clears the $750 free shipping threshold by itself.

KEY FEATURES

• Authentic Pizza Ovens builders custom pizza oven, the custom builder pizza oven of the APO range: the Lisboa or Pizzaioli brick dome with no facade, for cladding into an outdoor kitchen, wall, or chimney breast
• Builders custom pizza oven construction is the same as the finished models: fire brick and mortar chamber, APO's patented Rockwool insulation secured with steel mesh, refractory cement outer shell, handmade in Portugal
• Lisboa dome: 39 W x 31 H x 39 D, 31 x 31 in floor, 19 in headroom, 15.5 x 12 in split iron Dutch door with a rotisserie port
• Pizzaioli dome: 39 W x 26 H x 39 D, 30 x 32 in floor, 15 in headroom, 19.7 x 10.6 in iron door that drops down; no rotisserie
• About 1,200 lb either builders custom pizza oven dome, on a 39 in square base plate; set by forklift, skid steer, or hoist onto a cured masonry base
• Iron door, factory finished; paint it with high heat exterior enamel or let it patina; it will rust if left untreated near water
• Stainless chimney spout with damper fitted, 5.5 in; APO's 38 in extension and cap sold separately for enclosed builds
• Includes the 10 x 14.5 x 3 in Portuguese ceramic baking dish, 0 to 500°C thermometer, and Ultra Fire crack repair kit
• Front takes brick, adhered stone veneer, tile, or stucco on high heat mortar and adhesive after the oven is cured; round the corners
• $400 less than the finished Lisboa and Pizzaioli Premium, which carry a factory facade and a cast aluminum door with a window
• Standard brick oven cover fits the bare dome; confirm the enclosed build with Crustify before closing the oven in
• Free freight delivery from the brand's Texas warehouse, $95 residential liftgate fee at checkout, refunded for a site with a forklift or dock

SPECIFICATIONS

Lisboa dome drawing: the tall dome, 31 in high with 19 in of headroom and the 15.5 x 12 in Dutch door.

Pizzaioli dome drawing: the low dome, 26 in high with 15 in of headroom and the 19.7 x 10.6 in drop down door.

APO's drawings are the generic Lisboa and Pizzaioli drawings and carry the base and floor figures that apply to the customs: a 39 inch square base plate, a 30 by 32 inch floor on both, a 5.5 inch spout, and 1,200 pounds. The dome heights and door sizes in the tables below come from APO's builders custom listings, which match the finished Lisboa and Pizzaioli pages. Every oven is handmade, so expect small variations, and APO's own note on the Lisboa drawing is worth keeping: round the corners of the facade to avoid cracks.

By dome

Shared specifications

VIDEO

Five videos. The first three are Authentic Pizza Ovens' own films: how to build and manage the fire, how the domes are built in the Portuguese workshop, which is the best look at what sits under the cladding, and how to treat hairline cracks with the Ultra Fire kit that ships with every custom. The last two are customer clips of finished Pizzaioli ovens: a forklift delivery and first fire, and a Pizzaioli built into an outdoor kitchen cooking for guests. The customs arrive without the fronts those two clips show.

INSTALLATION GUIDE & USER MANUAL

Before delivery. Pour or lay the builders custom pizza oven base on a footing sized for 1,200 pounds plus the facade and the counter, with a level, non combustible top at least 39 by 39 inches and a working height of 32 to 36 inches. Plan the flue path and any chimney breast before the base is finished. Book the forklift, skid steer, or hoist for delivery day; the crate comes off the truck at the curb.

Setting the dome. Lift the crated dome from the pallet, remove the crate, and set the dome on the base square to the counter line, with the door side where the cook will stand. Do not drag it. Take the dish, thermometer, and Ultra Fire kit out of the chamber and fit the thermometer into its hole beside the door. Leave a compressible joint at the base perimeter rather than mortaring the dome hard to the slab.

Curing. Small fires of dry hardwood in the builders custom pizza oven over several days, each a little larger than the last, before the first full burn; the dome is masonry and it holds moisture from manufacture and shipping. Then use the oven normally for a few weeks. Treat any hairline cracks in the white shell with the Ultra Fire kit as APO's video shows. Only then clad.

Cladding. Brick, adhered stone veneer, tile, or stucco on high heat mortar and adhesive, following the veneer manufacturer's installation guide for scratch coat, lath, and joints. Round every outside corner. Keep the chimney spout and damper, the door opening and frame, and the thermometer hole clear. Carry the facade's weight on the base, not the dome. Paint the iron door with high heat exterior enamel before the facade goes on if you want it black.

Flue. Under a roof, pergola, or in a chimney breast, fit APO's 38 inch extension and cap to the spout and carry the flue past the roof line with the clearances to combustibles your code requires. An open air build needs only the spout and the cap.

Every fire. Build the fire in the center of the builders custom pizza oven, push the coals to the back or one side when the dome has burned white, cook through the mouth with the door off, and put the door on for bread and roasting on the falling heat. Cover the bare dome whenever it is not in use until the enclosure is finished.

WARRANTY INFORMATION

Coverage. Authentic Pizza Ovens covers the builders custom pizza oven on the same basis as its traditional ovens, against structural defects in materials and craftsmanship, to the original purchaser from the date of delivery.

Conditions. The oven must be protected from weather whenever it is not in use, which on a bare dome means the APO cover or equivalent, and on an enclosed build means the enclosure; we are confirming APO's position on fully enclosed builds in writing and ask every builder to contact us before the oven is closed in. Curing fires must be run before the first full burn. Never use accelerants and never exceed 500°C.

Exclusions. Hairline cracking of the outer cement shell is normal on a masonry oven and is not a defect; the Ultra Fire kit is included for it. Rust on the untreated iron door, damage from cladding materials or methods, from a base that settles or was not level, from moving the dome after it was set, or from an oven left bare and uncovered is excluded. Facade work is the builder's, not APO's.

Claims. Contact us first with photos and your order number. We handle the claim with APO on your behalf. Shipping damage is separate: note it on the delivery receipt or report concealed damage within five days.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS - FAQ'S

Your Questions Answered Before You Buy

The first six are the questions any buyer asks about the builders custom pizza oven. The six after them are the ones builders and contractors ask, answered the same way. If yours is not here, chat or email goes to the owner and you will usually hear back the same day.