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Thursday 23 June 2011

How to Make an Outdoor Firepit

An outdoor firepit is one of the simplest and easiest ways to enjoy your yard on an autumn evening. They take hardly any time at all to design and build. In fact you can probably get it accomplished in only a few hours on the weekend. So do you want to know how to make an outdoor firepit? Easy just follow a few easy steps.

Pick a spot in your yard that you don't mind digging up! The location should be clear of anything overhead that might catch fire.


Next on the safety side of things is to put a call into the utility company. Have them come out and mark any buried lines. You don't want to end up cutting any buried cables.


Once they've marked the location grab your shovel and pretend that you're a kid again trying to dig to China.


The hole you dig should be about 3 feet in diameter and about 24 inches deep. It doesn't need to be anything elaborate; a circular hole in the ground is all you're shooting for here.


Use the back of the shovel and compact the sides and bottom of the soon to be firepit.


This could be it! Really just a hole in the ground is all you need. But you might as well make it a pretty hole.

To keep the sides stable pour a couple bags of river rock into the pit. This will help with water drainage. Try and line the sides as well as bottom.


The next step is for beauty as well as safety; you don't want someone falling into your new firepit. A really attractive solution is to ring the pit with natural flagstones. These flat rocks lend themselves perfectly to decorative stacking.


Lay a row of large flagstones around the edge of your
firepit. For added sturdiness rock them back and forth to set them in the ground. Once complete just keep stacking more flagstones on top. Be sure that they fit well together without any shakiness.

You don't need a very high ring around the firepit, a foot is plenty.


Use some of the dirt that you dug out of the hole and put a small layer around the base of the flagstone ring to further secure it into place. You don't need much just enough to fill in any weak spots that might have a bit of wobble to them.


The last thing to do is getting rid of all the dirt you dug out.


This is a great time to fill in any low spots in your yard. Just dump the dirt out there and level it out.


There you have it a quick and easy
fire pit with natural flagstone fire ring around it. All you need now is a few chunks of wood, some old newspapers, and a lighter. In no time you'll have a crackling fire to sit around and make s'mores, roast hot dogs, you name it That's how to make an outdoor firepit fun as well as tasty!

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