PizzaOvenRepair.center (844) 747-3662Mon–Sat, 8am–8pm Book a visit
A pizza oven's stone floor with one scorched patch beside a pale one, seen close.

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.

(844) 747-3662

Mon–Sat, 8am–8pm

  • Three guides
  • Read before you book
  • Says where to stop

Book a visit

Three short steps, about a minute.

or call (844) 747-3662

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
A domed wood-fired pizza oven on a stone patio at early evening, a small smoky fire of split logs at the back of the pizza oven's floor giving off pale gray smoke, the empty stone floor in front of it in shadow, a basket of firewood beside the stand.
6-minute read

Why a pizza oven will not heat: short preheats, cold cylinders and wet masonry

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.

A pizza just pulled from a stainless outdoor gas pizza oven, lying on a wooden peel on a patio counter with its charred black underside tipped up toward the camera and its pale, barely melted top visible, the open mouth of the pizza oven behind it showing a glowing stone floor.
6-minute read

Why the bottom burns and the top stays pale, and which heat to turn up

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.

A close view of the front of a cold domed wood-fired pizza oven on a patio, a thin crack running up the pale stucco of the pizza oven's dome from the arch toward the chimney, the empty stone floor dark inside the mouth, a pencil mark at the end of the crack.
6-minute read

Why a dome cracks: normal crazing, trapped steam and fires too big

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?

The short answerWhy 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 answerWhy 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 answerWhy 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
  1. 01Gas, power and draft come first
  2. 02The cause, and its cost
  3. 03Parts that ride along
  4. 04Fired 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
A domed wood-fired pizza oven in a backyard on an overcast day, a small smoky fire of dark damp logs at the back of the pizza oven stone floor, the inside of the dome still black with soot, a pale raw pizza waiting on a peel resting on the ledge. Problem

Pizza Oven Not Getting Hot Enough to Bake a Crisp Crust

7 causes, cheapest first

 A stainless outdoor gas pizza oven on a patio counter in plain afternoon light, its door off and the pizza oven stone floor cold and empty, the burner channel along the back dark with no flame, the knob at the front. Problem

Gas Pizza Oven Won't Light: Clicks, Gas Hiss, Still No Flame

7 causes, cheapest first

 A stainless double deck pizza oven in a quiet pizzeria kitchen, one deck door lowered to show a round oven thermometer resting on the stone floor inside, a pizza half baked beside it, the analog dial on the front panel with no readable markings. Problem

Deck Oven Temperature Drifting Away From the Dial Setting

6 causes, cheapest first

 A domed wood-fired pizza oven in a backyard, thick gray smoke billowing from its short chimney, a smoldering pile of large damp logs on the pizza oven stone floor visible through the arched mouth, the dome dark with soot. Problem

Wood-Fired Pizza Oven Smoking Heavily Out of the Chimney Top

6 causes, cheapest first
A family sliding a pizza into a wood-fired pizza oven on a sunny patio.
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
A hand holding the knob of a pizza oven's gas valve in the off position.
Safe checks with the oven cold

Troubleshooting

A long brass brush resting on the cold stone floor of a pizza oven.
Habits that keep an oven baking evenly

Maintenance and prevention

A thermometer gun pointed at the stone floor of a pizza oven.
Gas, flame, smoke and safe bake temperatures

Gas, fire, smoke and food

A gas pizza oven and a wood-fired pizza oven side by side on one patio.
Wood or gas, deck or conveyor, fix or retire

Choosing and comparing

The steel flue pipe rising from the top of a pizza oven, seen from below.
Clearances, the hearth under it, the flue and the fuel

Installation and setup

Not sure which section?

Start from your question

The four questions most visits start with, each with the guide that answers it.

18 guidesWhere to start Where to start

Back to your everyday

Let’s get your pizza oven working again.

Three short steps online, or one call. Tell us what you are seeing and pick a window that works.

Schedule a repair Call (844) 747-3662
(844) 747-3662 Schedule a repair