--- title: "Common problems — Pizza Oven Guides | PizzaOvenRepair.center" description: "What a pizza oven means when the burner will not catch, the floor never gets hot enough, the bottoms burn while the tops stay pale, or a crack opens across the…" url: "https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/common-problems/" --- What the fire and the floor are telling you # Common problems guides. What a pizza oven means when the burner will not catch, the floor never gets hot enough, the bottoms burn while the tops stay pale, or a crack opens across the dome. ## Common problems, guide by guide. Start with what you have noticed at the pizza oven: a floor that stays too cool to crisp a crust, pies that blacken underneath while the cheese stays pale, or a crack that has appeared across the dome. Each guide explains what the oven is doing, why, and which reason is most likely on your kind of oven. [All 18 guides](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/) 6-minute read ### [Why a pizza oven will not heat: short preheats, cold cylinders and wet masonry](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/why-a-pizza-oven-will-not-heat/) The flame looks fine and the floor still reads cool. Preheat times from the makers, a chilled or tripped propane supply, firewood over 20% moisture, a dome full of rain and a deck worked on one spot. 6-minute read ### [Why the bottom burns and the top stays pale, and which heat to turn up](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/why-the-bottom-burns-and-the-top-stays-pale/) Floor, flame and dome each cook a different part of the pie. Feeding a fire that has sunk to coals, the hearth burner left on high, deck micro-slides and slow hours, and conveyor fingers out of order. 6-minute read ### [Why a dome cracks: normal crazing, trapped steam and fires too big](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/why-a-dome-cracks/) Fine lines are part of refractory; an eighth of an inch is where makers start to worry. How rain, a rushed first firing and cold things on hot stone open cracks, and when smoke through the shell ends the season. ## What the fire and the floor are telling you. They are written across the four families we repair, because one complaint has different roots in each. A cool floor in a wood-fired dome is usually wet wood or a short fire; in an outdoor gas oven it is often a chilled or nearly empty cylinder; in a deck oven it can be gas pressure shared with the rest of the line; in a conveyor it is the burner or the blowers. Inside each guide the cheap explanations come first, such as preheat time, fire size, a setting or the door, and the ones that need a part come last. Specific numbers are taken from the makers' US manuals and credited beneath the paragraph that uses them, so they can be compared with the booklet that came with your own oven. Where a pattern points to gas fittings, a valve, an element behind a panel or masonry that is letting smoke through, the guide says so and stops. Owners do not open gas fittings or panels over live wiring, and nobody reaches into a hot oven or climbs onto a dome or a roof to look at a chimney. [Not sure where to start?](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/#start-here) ### The short answer Why a pizza oven will not heat: short preheats, cold cylinders and wet masonry When a pizza oven will not heat, work through the cheap causes first: too short a preheat, a nearly empty or chilled propane cylinder, a tripped flow limiter, wet firewood, a dome that soaked up rain, a door left open and a deck worked on one spot. ### The short answer Why the bottom burns and the top stays pale, and which heat to turn up Pizza oven bottom burning with a pale top means floor heat is outrunning top heat. ### The short answer Why a dome cracks: normal crazing, trapped steam and fires too big A pizza oven dome crack is usually harmless hairline crazing from heating and cooling, which Wood Stone, Alfa and Coyote all treat as normal. ## When reading is not enough. If the checks in these guides did not settle it, the visit picks up from there, stop by stop. [What repairs cost](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/cost/) 1. 01 Gas, power and draft come first 2. 02 The cause, and its cost 3. 03 Parts that ride along 4. 04 Fired up before we go ## The problems these answer. Each has a page of its own, with the causes in the order worth checking. [All 17 problems](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/problems/) Problem ### Pizza Oven Not Getting Hot Enough to Bake a Crisp Crust 7 causes, cheapest first Problem ### Gas Pizza Oven Won't Light: Clicks, Gas Hiss, Still No Flame 7 causes, cheapest first Problem ### Deck Oven Temperature Drifting Away From the Dial Setting 6 causes, cheapest first Problem ### Wood-Fired Pizza Oven Smoking Heavily Out of the Chimney Top 6 causes, cheapest first For the heart of your home. ## Questions about common problems. ### Where do I begin if several of these sound familiar? Pick the guide closest to what you see on the pie or the oven today. A slow, pale bake belongs to the heating guide, a lopsided bake to the one about burnt bottoms, and anything in the masonry to the guide on cracks. ### Do they apply to every make of pizza oven? Yes. Each guide is built around a symptom and the four oven families rather than a brand, and it quotes makers such as Lynx, Kalamazoo, Alfa, Coyote, Bakers Pride, Blodgett and Middleby Marshall wherever their manuals give a specific figure. ### Is a crack or a slow preheat always a repair? No. Fine crazing in refractory is normal, and a large share of slow ovens are fixed by drier wood, a full cylinder or a longer soak. The guides help you tell those apart from the cases that need us. ### What helps most if a visit turns out to be needed? The rating plate details, the oven type and fuel, a photo of both sides of a finished pie or of the crack, and a line on when the problem began. That shortens the visit more than anything else. ## The other sections. Split by what you are trying to find out rather than by which part of the appliance it concerns. [All guides](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/) Safe checks with the oven cold ### [Troubleshooting](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/troubleshooting/) - [Pizza oven troubleshooting in half an hour, with the fire out](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/pizza-oven-checks-before-booking/) - [When the pilot will not stay lit after you let go of the button](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/when-the-pilot-will-not-stay-lit/) - [Find the pizza oven rating plate: under the tray, round the back or behind the panel](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/find-the-pizza-oven-rating-plate/) Habits that keep an oven baking evenly ### [Maintenance and prevention](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/maintenance-and-prevention/) - [Curing a New Pizza Oven: Slow First Fires on the Maker's Schedule](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/curing-a-new-pizza-oven/) - [Cleaning the Pizza Oven Floor and Chimney Without Water on Hot Stone](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/cleaning-the-floor-and-the-chimney/) - [Keeping a Deck Oven Baking Even: Dampers, Stone Care and Where the Pies Land](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/keeping-a-deck-oven-baking-even/) Gas, flame, smoke and safe bake temperatures ### [Gas, fire, smoke and food](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/safety-and-food/) - [A gas smell at the pizza oven: burners off, supply closed, everyone back](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/a-gas-smell-at-the-pizza-oven/) - [Chimney fire or smoke in the room: closing the door on a pizza oven flue](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/a-chimney-fire-or-smoke-in-the-room/) - [Burning the right wood in a pizza oven: dry hardwood, under 20 percent](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/burning-the-right-wood/) Wood or gas, deck or conveyor, fix or retire ### [Choosing and comparing](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/choosing-and-comparing/) - [Wood, Gas or Electric Pizza Oven: How Each Heats the Stone and What It Asks of You](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/wood-gas-or-electric-pizza-oven/) - [Deck or Conveyor for a Pizzeria: Stone, Moving Air and the Upkeep Behind Each](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/deck-or-conveyor-for-a-pizzeria/) - [Fix It or Start Over: Weighing a Tired Pizza Oven Part by Part](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/repair-or-replace-a-pizza-oven/) Clearances, the hearth under it, the flue and the fuel ### [Installation and setup](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/installation-and-setup/) - [Clearances and the hearth under a pizza oven: walls, roofs and the insulated floor](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/clearances-and-the-hearth-under-an-oven/) - [Venting a pizza oven: chimney height, offsets, hoods and makeup air](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/venting-a-pizza-oven/) - [Gas and power for a pizzeria oven: what the rating plate asks of the building](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/gas-and-power-for-a-pizzeria-oven/) Not sure which section? ### Start from your question The four questions most visits start with, each with the guide that answers it. 18 guides Where to start Where to start --- **[Read on the site: Common problems — Pizza Oven Guides | PizzaOvenRepair.center](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/guides/common-problems/)** **[Book a visit with PizzaOvenRepair.center](https://pizzaovenrepair.center/schedule/)**