Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I know it's harsh and mostly overdone to give a 1-star rating, so I give it 2, but I was tempted. I'm no novice to pizza. I work with a pizzaiola every couple of weeks and he has mentored me quite a bit, which is why I was SO amped up for this oven. I was excited I could finally upgrade from my home oven and Baking Steel to something with an appropriate temperature. Sadly, my experience was quite different. First, the oven is a bit heavier than you'd expect, which made for somewhat awkward assembly and placement. It was easy to put together the components, however. The first oven that was delivered looked as if it had been dropped on its head from 10 feet, but a replacement was sent. The second oven assembled fine, and it took 2 1-hour seasoning burns at max temp before the burned plastic smell finally dissipated. But thats where the issues began. The creosote buildup in this oven is absolutely insane, and even running at max temps for awhile it didn't burn off very well, which just makes for constant black messes. The Youtube videos from Ooni advertise that this oven reaches temp in 15-20 minutes (even apparently after immediately being unburied from a pile of snow) but thats completely false. Even the owners manual included with the oven itself says "20-40 minutes." Real time: 45 to cooking temps, and 55 for max temps for pizza. The problem, at that temperature, then becomes the windowed door itself. When at pizza temperatures the latch that holds the door on expands enough that the door gets COMPLETELY stuck on the oven. You have to wear the included gloves even to touch the wood handle at that point and have to use some serious yanking force to get the door off. Upon reading forums online I found that this was a common issue, not just me. Having to yank this thing around just to get the door off is dangerous, and the whole thing just becomes even more of a burn risk than before. Second, the threaded component of the in-door thermometer couldn't handle the heat produced and split in half and the thermometer would no longer stay attached to the door, rendering it useless. Before anyone wonders if it was the yanking around of the door that somehow contributed to the threaded component breaking, it broke before that. Managing the temperature to make more than one pizza in a session was WAY more work than anticipated. You need more than one person to stretch dough/assemble pizza, manage the fire/temp, and turn in order to have any sort of functional process. But the biggest disappointment was how even with all that extra work the product that came out in the end was at BEST marginally better than what I get in my 550° oven with a Baking Steel. The BIGGEST issue was the constant blackening on the bottom of the dough. I made 5 pies, and only one came out the way you'd hope it to. Again, I'm no novice, and with only 20% success rate, a RIDICULOUSLY increased workload, a much more high-maintenance procedure, and increased burn risks, this oven was in no way worth the $642. I was insanely disappointed. The quality of the build was lacking, and it was way too much work to justify the at best marginal improvement. Perhaps having the gas attachment, eliminating the creosote buildup and temperature variations, would make this more feasible. But at that point, why would you buy a wood-burning oven and not just buy the much cheaper Koda? Was not happy in the least bit.