The Complete Guide
Custom Made Pizza Oven Covers — The Australian Owner's Complete Guide
A pizza oven is a serious piece of outdoor cooking equipment, and one of the most expensive to repair if water gets in. This guide covers everything you need to know before ordering a custom cover for your outdoor pizza oven.
Why pizza ovens need a proper cover
A pizza oven dome is built from refractory materials — dense ceramic, clay, or cast iron — that absorb and hold heat at high temperatures. Those same materials are also porous, which means they absorb water.
When a pizza oven is left uncovered and exposed to rain, moisture works its way into the refractory material. The next time the oven is fired up, that moisture expands rapidly as it heats. Over time this causes cracking in the dome. It can also damage the internal firebricks and affect the cooking floor. A pizza oven that has had significant water infiltration is expensive to repair and in serious cases cannot be fully restored.
A cover that actually fits is the simplest and cheapest way to protect that investment between uses.
How to measure a pizza oven dome
Pizza oven covers are made to the bounding rectangle of the dome, which means measuring the widest, deepest, and tallest point of the oven. The cover is then shaped to sit over the dome from those three dimensions.
Width
Width is the widest point of the oven from side to side. On most dome ovens this is at the base of the dome where it meets the oven body or base ring. Measure across the outside of the dome at its widest point. If the oven has a door frame or arch that extends slightly wider than the dome itself, include that.
Depth
Depth is the deepest point of the oven from front to back. Measure across the outside of the dome at its deepest point. On ovens with a forward-extending door frame or a protruding flue at the rear, include those if they extend noticeably beyond the dome body.
Height
Height is from the base of the oven body up to the peak of the dome or the top of any fixed chimney or flue. Do not measure from the ground. The cover sits on the oven body, not on the stand or trolley, so start your height measurement from the bottom edge of the dome housing.
If your chimney is a removable pipe that you take off between uses, measure to the top of the dome without it. If the chimney is fixed and permanently attached, include it in the height.
Why the material needs to be right
Pizza ovens present two specific challenges for cover materials. The first is their shape. A dome concentrates any water that falls on it toward a single peak, then channels it down the sides. A cover that sags or pools water at the crown puts pressure on the fabric and coating at that point. A cover made from fabric stiff enough to hold its shape over the dome prevents water from collecting.
The second challenge is UV. An outdoor pizza oven sits in full sun, often on a paved or tiled area that reflects additional UV back up from below. Surface-dyed or coated fabrics in these conditions can start to chalk and crack within a couple of seasons.
The face fabric on every cover is 200gsm solution-dyed polyester. Solution-dyed means the pigment runs through each fibre rather than sitting on the surface, which is what gives it genuine UV resistance rather than UV resistance that fades away as the surface coating breaks down.
The underside carries a polyurethane waterproof coating that stays flexible in heat. That matters for any cover used in a hot outdoor environment.
Caring for your cover
Rinse the outside of the cover with a hose every month or two, particularly if you are in a dusty area or after heavy rain. Shake off any debris before placing it on the oven.
Always wait until the oven is completely cold before covering it. Pizza ovens hold heat for a long time after use, sometimes four to six hours depending on how long and how hot you fired it. Touching the dome should give you complete confidence it is cool before the cover goes on.
Do not fold the cover in the same place every time when storing it. Vary the fold points so the waterproof coating does not wear through along repeated crease lines.