WeekEnder column: DIY pizza oven could be a health risk

Pizza and fire are two of Craig Cooper's favourite things. But he should be prohibited from building a pizza oven, he writes.

There are some things in life that men just need to accept they are not cut out for.

But it doesn't stop us having a go.

I want to build a pizza oven, for example.
There are several reasons why I want one.

Actually, no, there are two reasons. I like fire. And I like pizza.

But there are just as many reasons as to why I should not attempt the project alone, without some form of safety and construction supervision.

Mainly fire and DIY.

There is a tree at a former Cooper residence that never quite recovered from being accidentally set alight.

I was trying to coax more life out of a smouldering log in a brazier that I thought was a safe distance from an adjacent tree.

And in doing so I, err, over ignited it, shall we say.

I wasn't aware that green tree branches can catch fire. They can - I learned a valuable lesson that night and so did the wide-eyed children watching.

Other DIY disasters have also attracted my children's attention.

"Just rip it off dad," was the advice given to me when I accidentally glued a tube of super glue to my hand.
The glue had leaked and "hey presto" I had a sixth finger.

I didn't panic, as this has happened before.
Usually, nail polish remover will unstick your fingers. Except this time, it didn't work.

Puzzled, for the next 15 minutes I worked my way through household chemicals with no joy. Meths. Turps. Paint thinner. Nail polish again.

And then I read the instructions on the tube stuck on my hand - "wash with warm soapy water".
Blow me down, it worked, the glue came apart like a piece of gum.

It was a far better concluson to previous DIY incidents. A skillsaw with sections of a sweatshirt stuck in it was dropped into a bin several years ago.

And my early forays into the DIY plumbing field may have resulted in a new kitchen bench, taps and sink installed, but we had to wait a few days without water after I discovered metric sized taps did not screw into imperial water connections.

There may have also been a few days without a phone after a wall was removed and I wrongly gave a "go ahead and cut it" instruction re a random wire that no one knew what it "did'.

And it wasn't quite a disaster but a pool erected in our backyard last sumer became a talking point when we realised the ground wasn't very level, and several thousand litres of chlorinated water was in real danger of spilling into the neighbour's vege garden.

The instructions hadn't mentioned a shallow and deep end.

As for the pizza oven, as long as I haven't cut the phone off, I think an 0800 no is probably the safer option.