Fire Pit

[harpoonalt]

I never thought about cleanout. You're right, rock would be a pain. I think I'm going to line it with the leftover masons sand and call it a day. A bonus is,I have enough leftover stone to put a small rock garden for the wife. Something to practice my newly learned skills on.

 

[bhostasa]

Thanks for all the nice comments! I'm just the lugger and toter. Kyle, the mason, is the doing a real nice job and teaching me a few things along the way. We did put rebar in the footing and the mortar is 2 parts masonry sand to one part masonry cement. Much cheaper than buying the premix. Hopefully we'll get it capped today and pictures tonight. The inside we're unsure of. I may put in some sort of stone or sand, but i'm open to suggestions. Then it's on to the patio portion. Should be just as much fun and just as much totin' and lifting

That looks awesome! I'm finishing my pit up this week too...I have a thread going under "rural living."

I put river rock in the center of mine for drainage and also to raise the fire a bit.

Nice work!

 

[ScottK]

I have to say that looks like a lot of work for a fire pit. What ever happened to just putting some rocks in a circle? Looks nice though and I watch Rock Solid as well. Better them than me doing all that heavy work!

 

[jd2305cd]

I have to say that looks like a lot of work for a fire pit. What ever happened to just putting some rocks in a circle? Looks nice though and I watch Rock Solid as well. Better them than me doing all that heavy work!

Just a higher class of red-necking is all.. Can't beat whiskey and a fire..

 

[bhostasa]

Just a higher class of red-necking is all.. Can't beat whiskey and a fire..

Well said jd2305cd

 

[johnk]

I'd leave a dirt bottom for easier cleanout also. I have a loose rock firepit and I take the rocks out of one side and drive in with the tractor and take a scoop. That option is gone for you but I would leave it as a dirt bottom.

 

[Egon]

I just drive up to my Fire Hill and sweep the ashes into the tractor bucket!

 

[The Dougster]

I've enjoyed seeing the photos and following the progress of the fire pits...
As a side note, some friends of mine, at there deer camp, have aold wheel off an 18-wheeler, cut out the middle and simply use the remaining rim for a fire pit... They've had it for years and it works great..

 

[harpoonalt]

Well, I finished the seating area for now. 2 tons of 3/8" stone for 17 bucks. what a deal! I still want to put some sort of stone down but am going to let this settle for awhile and look around for what I want to do. Had enough stone left over to put a small planting bed wall on the side of the garage. I really like the pit but now I realize we need some more landscaping around it. Have to sit on the back porch and ponder that over a few beers. My best ideas come after about beer #6 on a nice hot summer day!
I'm hoping for a fire soon, but the forecast calls for rain thru the weekend. Sure to post the fire pic when I do.

 

[harpoonalt]

sure, I hit post and forgot the pics Geese just showed up to see what was going on.

 

[scott_vt]

Good Evenin harpoonalt,
Gee that came out great ! Thanks for posting all the great pics also !

Post more pics of the first fire and of course the whiskey !

 

[Egon]

Looking Good!

[My best ideas come after about beer #6 on a nice hot summer day!
/QUOTE]

Most of us have to rely on "She Who Is In Command" for those ideas!

 

[EddieWalker]

Nice job. I like the rock that you put around the fire pit to stand on and keep the grass separate from the fire pit. Thanks for the update and commentary.

Eddie

 

[jd2305cd]

harpoonalt - I am going to do a simlar thing (hopefully in a weekend) at the cottage. Can you give me a rough idea how much brick you used? Also the overall diameter..

Thanks looks great..

 

[JB4310]

Fire pit looks great, I'm not to crazy about the white stone around, IMO it distracts from the beauty of the professionally laid natural stone work and it gets messy, some type of flat patio stone would go better.

If you get a good sized fire in there you wont be standing that close anyway though

JB.

 

[harpoonalt]

Thanks for the nice comments! I'm not crazy about the stone color either. I wanted a darker color but whatever vein the pit is working at the time is your choice. We're going to live with it for awhile until we find some complementary flagstone to put down instead. The pit is based on a DIY rock solid episode. They called for 60 firebrick for a smaller pit. We used 3 rows of 16 or 48 total for a larger pit. The pit is 6' OD with foot thick walls and an ID of 4'. The one on tv was smaller and didn't look right in our yard when I did the layout so we upsized. Still need some fire pictures and hopefully the right patio stone will show up in the stone yard and we'll finish that. Hope that helped.

 

[jd2305cd]

My attempt to copy your design and idea..

Blue stone cost 200 bucks for a pallet.
Firebricks - 90 bucks for 50 of them
mortar - 6 bags 40 bucks (lazy, premix kind)
cement - 4 bags 35 bucks

Poured the footer, stacked the bricks (which i couldn't get mortar to stick to very well) then did the outside layer and finally the Caps.. Poured the footer the weekend before, but did the whole fire pit in one day. First time ever doing mason work..

 

[linearxs]

Do you need to have the fire brick inside? Will the blocks/rocks crack if you don't have the fire brick to dissipate the heat?

 

[harpoonalt]

Hey, that looks great! You're a lot faster than we were. You're gonna love it! Not sure if the fire brick is necessary, but some have said regular rock can explode with high heat, so I opted to do the fire brick. Cheap insurance. We've had a few fires now and love the addition to our yard. So much that we did a little more landscaping. Eventually hope to do bluestone around the pit and add a walkway to the house. we made it a little big which makes starting fires a little harder but we can fit a lot of people around it. Cooks a mean Smore

 

[jd2305cd]

Landscaping looks great! We had some rock left over so going to make boarders around a couple of the flower beds to match for the wife..

I kicked the idea around and around on the clay bricks. What a guy who builds clay pizza ovens told me was that the red solid bricks can be used for the top of the oven and will hold up just fine in the long run, but you might have a couple crack. The fire brick will last longer and are really meant for the high heats and cooling/heating cycles..

So when spending 300 - 400 bucks, whats another 100 for some insurance.. Specially when your spending the time and effort.