How to Build a Multi Purpose Fire Pit for Your Backyard

Today backyard family get togethers and parties have multitudes of choices for not only things to do, but also ways to get the fun times done. One of the things that families can do together is to build a fire and sit around playing music or chatting and even have grandpa tell a scary story or two for the kids around the fire.

Talking about building a fire is one thing, but it should be done safely. Having a fire pit is one safe way to have that fun we're talking about. Fire pits come in many different sizes and shapes. You can purchase them just about any where there's a discount store.

Customize It

Or, you can build your own and have it customized to your liking. In this guide, rather than calling it an article, I'm going to tell you how to build your own outdoor fire pit. There are 2 types of fire pits:

Wood, or Charcoal burning
And Gas fire pits

The type that you will learn how to build is wood. I'm partial to the wood or charco al pits cause they are just better in terms of the wood smells and it looks better. To me a gas fire outside is just fake. But, hey they serve the purpose so whatever your choice is you can't go wrong.

Choose Your Style and Shape

Anyways, lets get on with building our fire pit out in the backyard. Our fire pit will be built as an "in ground" one. You can of course have an above ground one also. The style of our pit could be endless. Specifically in terms of decoration, type of brick or stone to use with it. Even colors are endless. You decide on the look of your pit.

Some shapes of pits include but are not limited to:

Round and Bowl shaped
Rectangular
Square
Octagon
And Pentagon shaped

Your imagination here is unlimited. Choose your shape then determine what size you want it to be. For this How To I will use the standard square shape. When determining your size to build, your first idea would be to find a safe place away from your house or even your deck if it is made of wood. We don't want any wild fires going on so we choose a place out in the middle of the yard.

If You Build It, They will come

Away from any low hanging trees or wires, bushes, etc.. Now that we've found our place to build it let's measure out a 3 foot by 3 foot square. Here again it can be as large or small as you want. Just take safety into consideration. After our measurements for size we mark those corners of the square off. Now before we begin to dig out our fire pit, how far down should we dig it?

Dig your fire pits no deeper than 3/4 of your arms length. Why that deep? Because every so often you'll need to clean it out. Clean out the ashes, dirt and so on. This way you don't have to climb down in it to clean it out. You'll still be able to reach to the bottom of it with your arm or even a broom and pick up pan.

Using a standard garden shovel we dig our fire pit within the measurements we marked off. Taking care to only dig about 1 1/2' deep. Or 3/4 arms length. After digging out your pit make sure that the sides of the pit are level and smooth. Removing any rocks or stones that would keep the sides and bottom from being level.

The reason you do this is when you place your bricks or stone in there to make the sides and bottom, it will also be level and perpendicular. You can even use sand to help you level the bottom of it. Now that you have your pit dug out and a big pile of dirt laying up there, its time to install the interior of the fire pit. At this time you should already have your chosen bricks or rock or stone to use on the inside.

You can use cement to strengthen the sides and bottom of it but I don't see the need, since the fire will be in the ground anyway. For this case we just use regular landscaping rock or brick. Then just lay the first layer of brick in the bottom around the sides.

Now fill in the rest of the bottom or floor of the pit. To make it fit right you may have to cut some of the bricks. Use a masonry saw for this. Once you have your pit floor completed, begin laying and stacking the brick around the sides of the pit.

Depending on how you want to make it at the corners you can either join them together or overlap them. But to join them you'll have to make custom cuts to the bricks. Continue filling up the sides of the pit by stacking your bricks.

Once you've reached the top of the fire pit, you may notice that the actual fire place will be smaller. But that's OK, we have a nice small fire pit to enjoy. From here you can do things like creating a deck out around the fire pit. Again your imagination is the limit.