My company has made a few, and I'd like to build or buy (preferably build) one for my yard. Problem is, most that I've experienced are great for ambience, but 90 percent of the heat goes straight up and doesn't help the people gathered around.
I'm interested in peoples experiences. I'm also wondering if one were to make an umbrella-type reflector that mounted over the pit, if that would help?
This is relevant to my interests. We've been talking about getting/building something, and right now I'm thinking about grabbing some brick/block from Home Depot and slapping it together. In nothing else, the thermal mass of that sort of sidewall would seem to provide more radiant heat than one of the steel tub types, but I'm hardly analyzing this beyond just wanting to sit by a fire outdoors sipping some scotch.
I don't know. The bricks would radiate nicely once they're heated up, but would provide a heat sink up until then. I'm thinking that a rain hat would help.
Good place to keep the nachos warm also.
I love my solo stove bonfire. That said, get a stainless dryer tub and profit. I think the diffusers also diffuse smoke. Which. No. The solo stove is so efficient once it gets hot, almost no smoke so you can get right next to it and maybe a diffuser works.
We have one built using the material list attached. Prices at 2012, so probably not accurate.
We've replaced The fire bowl a couple times since building it 10 years ago. Otherwise it's served use well. Provides ambiance, some heat, but as it gets colder we move the chairs closer.
I built a 4' diameter ring with discarded (free) brick, and welded together a steel ring (scrap, free) to line the bricks. The ring keeps the fire contained, and prevents the bricks from getting too hot. The base of the firepit I dug into a sort of a bowl, and put old flagstone (again, free) around the pit for looks. Great setup for toasting marshmallows, reading around, supposing a beverage, and staring into the glowing logs in a semi-hypnotic trance.
Protip:. Find hollow logs and throw one on. The fire will burn through the center, and looks like a fire snake tongue.
I am thinking about a steel fire ring with a lime stone patio surround. I am also considering welding rebar to the ring below the stone to help heat the area up faster.
I built one a few years back and it works well. It's the cut-off "bell end" of a 32" gas pipe from a pipeline yard we were working at. I've seen similar at locat scrap yards as well as large tractor rims which would work just as well.
I built this over a rainy weekend with unused stone that I had sitting around after other hardscape projects. My total expenses for it were 2 bags of Type S mortar($15) and $80 having the caps water jetted.
I had a large 5'x5'x12" thick boulder(green colored PA bluestone) that I used as a base. I then centered & leveled the pipe end on the boulder. After that it was nothing more than mixing mortar and setting stones all the way around. It dried overnight and I pointed the whole thing and cleaned it up on Sunday. After clean-up, I went and found some flat pieces big enough to make the top caps. The flat portion is 32"ID and 48"OD, so I made a template for the 8 pieces to make sure I had enough materials. I took the pieces and template to a friends shop and he was able to program the water jet to cut the 8 pieces. I would have been fine with hand cutting them, but she wanted the top neat & clean with a nice cut edge, so it was $80 well spent.
Between the cast iron pipe end, fieldstone around the sides and the boulder base, it absorbs heat and does a wonderful job of radiating heat from a few inches off the ground. It's a great place to spend chilly evenings with a beer or glass of wine. The secret is thermal mass. Stone is great at storing heat as is metal. The more you have, the longer it's heated, the more heat it gives off.
A friend also wanted to do a firepit in his yard one weekend for a gathering. Obviously he didn't have time to build one, but he called asking what I thought he could do. A quick trip to Tractor Supply and we had a firepit within an hour. He thought it would be a temporary thing, but 2 years later it's still the centerpiece of his backyard sitting area.
2 different size galvanized stock tanks and a few buckets of modified or stone.
Not his backyard, but a quick search image.
Around here crusher cones are popular. Thick and heavy and low enough to radiate heat out as much as up. The local quarries sell them for around $200.00. They are about 4 feet in diameter. I built my own version out of 1/4 inch plate.
In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :
I really like that one. Here's one that we made. The crushed glass is a really nice look when you're running gas:
I have one made from brick. Do not recommend. They have exactly the problem the OP stated: all the heat goes straight up.
I havent tried a solo stove, or knockoff, but I hear amazing things about them, and the clean burn is pretty awesome.
If doing one on the cheap, I'd go for a thick elevated steel pit. You want something that will radiate the heat outward really well, and you want to elevate it up where the amount of that radiation you can absorb is maximized. Obviously there is a tradeoff there for visuals & usability, but ideally you'd want it to be about the height of your stomach when sitting in your chair.
In theory brick radiates heat well, but in practice I guess the bricks are usually too thick. You can often rest your shoes on the outside of them, so that tells me they aren't getting that hot. A steel firepit will glow.
This is mine, bought on Amazon. Not bad but not perfect. It does radiate quite a lot of heat.
I also cook quite a bit on it
I have a ring of limestone rocks in the backyard. The ticket isn't heating the ring or anything around it, the secret is to just burn wood. Not sure what hardwoods are available to you, but if you get a good hot fire going, the pit doesn't matter. Once you get a good bed of coals it has nothing to do with convective heat, it's all radiant heat.
Mulberry, Maple, Oak, Locust, Ash, and Hickory are all high in BTU content. My woodpile is currently full of maple and oak with a bit of sassafras, and a good hot fire will literally melt the soles off your shoes if you prop them on the limestone. I have to rebuild my ring every few years because the radiant heat breaks the stones.
Anything you put over the fireplace is absorbing radiant heat from the combustion and re-radiating it. Skip that. You're just adding a heat transfer. Just burn a hot fire and it will radiate everywhere. You don't get convective heat from a campfire (unless you're standing in the smoke), you get radiant heat. No need to make the radiant heat in the pit, then have it soak into something else, then have that thing re-radiate it. Just make a hot fire.
If you like solostove, shop breeo too. They were actually the first smokeless and are made better than the solo
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:I have a ring of limestone rocks in the backyard. The ticket isn't heating the ring or anything around it, the secret is to just burn wood. Not sure what hardwoods are available to you, but if you get a good hot fire going, the pit doesn't matter. Once you get a good bed of coals it has nothing to do with convective heat, it's all radiant heat.
Mulberry, Maple, Oak, Locust, Ash, and Hickory are all high in BTU content. My woodpile is currently full of maple and oak with a bit of sassafras, and a good hot fire will literally melt the soles off your shoes if you prop them on the limestone. I have to rebuild my ring every few years because the radiant heat breaks the stones.
Anything you put over the fireplace is absorbing radiant heat from the combustion and re-radiating it. Skip that. You're just adding a heat transfer. Just burn a hot fire and it will radiate everywhere. You don't get convective heat from a campfire (unless you're standing in the smoke), you get radiant heat. No need to make the radiant heat in the pit, then have it soak into something else, then have that thing re-radiate it. Just make a hot fire.
The problem with a brick/stone pit is it blocks the first ~1.5 to 2 feet of radiant heat.
By the time I added up materials and time, I bought a solo stove. Not even a big one, plenty hot. Like that I can have it on the deck or yard and it's small enough my kids can move around (to be clear, when it's cooled).
I had an experience with a Solo Stove over the weekend and I'm a fan. The fire started really rapidly and it burned jet-engine-hot in very little time. It's a very attractive package and I'd say that the "smokeless" claim is justified. It wasn't a particularly cold night, but it did seem like you had to be fairly close to feel the warmth as it was shooting a lot of heat straight up.
I built one that was a zero from an ambiance standpoint but it was a 10+ for heat.
It was a 40-gallon water tank with a 12x12 door cut in the side. A 7' long piece of 4" EMT was used as a chimney and a bunch of vent holes were drilled in the bottom.
If you got the fire rolling, the top half and the first 3' of the chimney would glow. It put out an enormous amount of heat but it was ugly and you couldn't see the fire. As a plus, the chimney kept the smoke up and out of everyone's face.
You can see it on the left side of this picture.
I think I see your problem... 
Not enough fire.
In reply to wae :
Those SOLO's are awesome. A buddy has a diffuser ring added and it pumps the heat sideways vs verticle.
Those smokeless fire pits sound awesome...............then I looked at the prices!
lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) said:A friend also wanted to do a firepit in his yard one weekend for a gathering. Obviously he didn't have time to build one, but he called asking what I thought he could do. A quick trip to Tractor Supply and we had a firepit within an hour. He thought it would be a temporary thing, but 2 years later it's still the centerpiece of his backyard sitting area.
2 different size galvanized stock tanks and a few buckets of modified or stone.
Not his backyard, but a quick search image.
It looks great, too! Pretty ingenious.
ProDarwin said:Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:I have a ring of limestone rocks in the backyard. The ticket isn't heating the ring or anything around it, the secret is to just burn wood. Not sure what hardwoods are available to you, but if you get a good hot fire going, the pit doesn't matter. Once you get a good bed of coals it has nothing to do with convective heat, it's all radiant heat.
Mulberry, Maple, Oak, Locust, Ash, and Hickory are all high in BTU content. My woodpile is currently full of maple and oak with a bit of sassafras, and a good hot fire will literally melt the soles off your shoes if you prop them on the limestone. I have to rebuild my ring every few years because the radiant heat breaks the stones.
Anything you put over the fireplace is absorbing radiant heat from the combustion and re-radiating it. Skip that. You're just adding a heat transfer. Just burn a hot fire and it will radiate everywhere. You don't get convective heat from a campfire (unless you're standing in the smoke), you get radiant heat. No need to make the radiant heat in the pit, then have it soak into something else, then have that thing re-radiate it. Just make a hot fire.
The problem with a brick/stone pit is it blocks the first ~1.5 to 2 feet of radiant heat.
Mine certainly doesn't. If you build a 2' high pit, yes. Mine is two stones high and never taller than about 6". My shins roast just dandy :)
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