Gardening Basics

Build a Backyard Fire Pit for your Family

Posted by Michael Paulstone

How to Instrutions on Building your Backyard Fire Pit

Bringing my family together was my goal. Creating a place that we could gather together in the early evening that didn’t include a television took some thinking. A fire pit is a small dug out pit where you can start a camp fire and just gather around and talk. It is a somewhat cozy way of getting warm and at the same time bonding with the people around you.

Getting people around a fire and talking about anything under the night sky just create a mood that is hard to describe. For many years, a fire pit has been used for outdoor activities and camp outs to foster good relations among campers. But how to build a fire pit has been a topic of much discussion because it usually requires some planning and thought. You don’t want the fire pit too close to any structures that might catch fire easily or any dried up plants or wood that are highly flammable.

Safety Instructions on How To Build A Fire Pit

Once you have chosen a safe location of your proposed fire pit, you can then begin to focus on the fire pit building basics. Initially plan just how big the circumference of your fire pit must be. A fire pit shouldn’t be a huge hole in the the ground; an ideal circumference can be a foot and a half.

How to build a fire pit is easy once you have all the materials ready. You need some digging tools and some pea gravel and sand. You will also need some concrete pavers or blocks to surround your fire pit with. Check with your local home supply company, like Home Depot or Lowe’s for the tools and materials you need.

With your fire pit supplies in hand, start by drawing a circle on the ground that equals the inital size of your fire pit. Dig down about one foot. Within this new hole you want to dig a smaller hole with the circumference of about six inches and about 8-12 inches deep.

Next fill both holes with pea gravel leaving room to add about three inches of sand at the very top of the fire pit. Once complete the sand base should be about even with the surround ground surface. You can begin to build a ring around the fire pit using the concrete paver you purchased. Make sure you stack the pavers high enough to prevent your logs or sticks from rolling out of the pit.

You might want to also build a nice place to sit around the fire pit. A simple bench can be constructed using a couple of cinder blocsk and a six foot length of redwood 2×6 lumber. Dress up the bench by using “Key Stone” landscaping blocks. These blocks are typically used to build retaining walls and come in a wide variety of textures and colors.

Make building a backyard fire pit a family project. It can be a fun and as you can see doesn’t have to be expensive.

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