After raking the stone to a depth of about 2 inches, we compacted it with a hand tamper.įor aesthetic reasons and to ensure the fire pit blocks align properly, it’s important to build the pit’s walls on a level surface. You’ll need a pickup truck or a small trailer to get this material from a quarry. If not, contact a local sand and gravel quarry to see if they make small bulk sales to residential customers. A local landscape supply center or home center will likely have a material like this in bulk or bagged. Where I live, the most common material for this is crushed stone known as 2A Modified, a road-building material. The specific stone you use for this will vary depending on your region. To create a base for the pit and gravel, we dug a hole 4 inches deep bordered by the painted circle and dumped in several wheelbarrow loads of crushed stone. $14 at Amazon $14 at Walmart Credit: Courtesy This is large enough to accommodate the pit, whose outside diameter is 66 inches, and a surrounding 18-inch band of River Jacks gravel. When I had located the ideal spot in my yard, Berendsohn and I drove a stake at the approximate center of the pit, looped a mason’s line around the stake, and then tied the line around a can of white landscape spray paint, with which I created a 102-inch-diameter circle. Local laws will almost certainly require you to position a structure of this type a given distance from your house or the neighbor’s property line. Although it doesn’t pose a fire danger to a well head, septic tank, or leaching field, those are also areas you should avoid. Don’t build the pit under low-hanging limbs or a power line where a flying ember can arise and melt the line’s insulation. Picking the Right SpotĬommon sense with an eye toward fire safety requires that you build the fire pit somewhere that it doesn’t create a fire hazard to your home, outbuildings, or neighbors’ houses or their property. Bonus: The remaining charcoal at the bottom of the pit is hidden from view. The pit looked great and safely contained the fire without a burnt ring of grass the next day. Friends gathered, and I relaxed with a cold beer. Much to my surprise, Popular Mechanics tester and editor Roy Berendsohn and I were able to construct the pit in 4 hours. Investigating chimineas and steel fire rings at a nearby home center, my wife and I discovered the Fossil Stone Fire Pit from Natural Concrete Products. So I abandoned the idea of traditional masonry. Mixing it by hand also seemed like a backbreaker. A wheelbarrow full of the stuff can weigh anywhere from 200 to 300 pounds. Wet concrete weighs roughly 150 pounds per cubic foot. Even if I opted to have the material delivered, it’s not easy lugging it by wheelbarrow. Then I’d have to get the concrete into the trench. In our case, that means excavating down through clay and rocky soil. For these, you need to dig a minimum of a 30-inch-deep footing trench. I considered building a traditional brick fire pit on a concrete footing, but that’s no small undertaking or expense. And we were concerned that a wind-blown ember could start a brush fire in the nearby woods. But we didn’t like the ugly charred circle that these fires left behind. A cozy fire and a circle of friends is the perfect soft landing after a day’s work. We live on a quiet Pennsylvania hilltop, and our house backs up to some woods. My wife Bev and I love to sit outside in the late afternoon or in the evening with some friends and enjoy a fire in the backyard. The Best Portable Fire Pits for Home or Camping.How to Build Your Own DIY Smokeless Fire Pit.Best Smokeless Fire Pits for Backyard Bonfires.Tack on anywhere from two to four hours to construct the log benches that we show below to fully build out your setup. With a helper and a good start in the morning, you should be able to complete this job by some point in the early afternoon. ![]() ![]() One physically fit person can easily do the work in a day. They’re designed to simplify the process from start to finish, removing much of the guesswork and experience necessary to build one of these using traditional masonry methods. But unlike building a traditional fire pit out of brick and mortar, these kits don’t require a massive concrete foundation, nor several days to build. We admit, some hard work is involved, such as toting gravel and laying up the sides of the fire pit. There may be frost in the morning, but a sunny and cool fall afternoon is the ideal time to tackle this job. Master skills, get tool recommendations, and, most importantly, build something of your very own.įall is the perfect time to build a masonry fire pit from a kit. ![]() POP Projects is a collection of new and classic projects from more than a century of Popular Mechanics.
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