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Kids love fire! My neighbor has one and he fires it up on weekends sometimes to entertain his 5 year old son. Whenever my son sees the smoke, he races over and the two of them are entranced for at least an hour. And keeps the mosquitoes away.
Wouldn't want one if it has to be gas - takes a huge chunk of the joy out of it, might as well sit in front of a video of a fire as far as I'm concerned, just as "sanitizing" and missing the point as that. But would love to have a firepit, it's on the "to do someday in my copious spare time" list, and know many people who do, either permanent installations or portable.
fire pits are all the rage right now. Who knows if they will ever fall out of favor, but everybody's got one. I just picked a a free cast iron chiminea from a neighbor that had built one in their backyard along with the surrounding cement pad. It was very nice, but a free chiminea was even nicer still.
Last edited by gunslinger256; 07-04-2018 at 06:37 PM..
I can see the appeal in the late autumn but it seems like we would not use it more than that because of the climate where we are on the east coast.
Fairly common up here in new England. In my neighborhood, every house has one. I put one in when we moved one in. Pretty good to hang around on a hot summer night shooting the breeze with buddies around it, but it's also great in the autumn and has gotten used a few times in the winter.
Of course, you gotta be courteous and not overdo it or burn junk in the pit. Clean wood, get it hot and the smoke will go straight up and be clean. You always have that one neighbor that throws junk on the fire that makes lots of smoke that never really gets hot so the smoke stays low to the ground.
Of course, being MA, the local FB newsfeed is full of people who complain about them and fireplaces and want them banned.
Most people don't build a fire on the kitchen stove when there are 25 mph winds blowing though the middle of the kitchen. Very few people light the kitchen stove with a can of gasoline. It's pretty rare to be cooking anything that hangs over the edge of the stove by three feet, which some people do with firewood. Generally people aren't cooking things that are throwing up big handfuls of burning embers that float away on the wind.
Not saying that tenants have never burned a rubber tire upon the kitchen stove to save the $30 dump fee, but it isn't common where I live. Tenants don't burn garbage on the kitchen stove.
It's easier to not allow a fire pit for tenants than it is to insist that they take a fire safety course and use the proper safety tools around the fire, then go over and sit and watch them while they burn to make sure they follow the safety rules.
It's somewhat less likely for unsupervised tenant kids to build a fire on the kitchen stove than it would be for them to try to start a fire in the fire pit when parents weren't home.
Renters burning tires or trash? I think that's avoided by having a decent class of tenant.
You're missing the point (I think,) which is that the marginal risk of a fire pit burning the rental property pales in comparison to the stove. Kids aren't going to "build a fire," but they might start one by being inattentive to the stove. More than once I've had to evacuate a building for a fire drill started by someone that got drunk and forgot the stove/oven was on. I just don't see it being much worse than a grill.
That said, I know you live out west, where fire safety is a whole different creature than what people east of the Mississippi live with.
We have one. We use it a lot. Last time was on Sunday, my son had a dozen or so friends over, they sat round the fire and talked and make smores.
It works in most seasons although we rarely use it in the winter. Sometimes, but not too often. In our community, that is pretty much the thing to do. You do not invite friends over for a formal dinner in your dining room, you invite them to a bonfire in the back yard. It is more common in the spring and fall when the nights are cooler, but it is not unusual through the summer. By the time it gets dark (9:30 p.m.) it is usually cool enough for a fire to be comfortable, sometimes even welcome. On warm nights the kids sometimes swim for a while sit by the fire and dry off, get hot. Some some more, sit by the fire . . .
It is correct though that fall is the best time to use it. Then it is perfect. However it is rare any time of year that we cannot smell a wood fire on our way home if we have the windows open (not always bonfires, sometimes people burn wood in a fireplace, but usually there are a number of bonfires on any given night excluding rain, snow, or high winds).
Some of those little commercially built fire pits are kind of stupid IMO. How do you make a bonfire in a ring big enough for maybe one or two logs? I do not see why people pay for a fire pit anyway. Just make a pit maybe two or three inches deep. Get some rocks and make a ring. The rocks will eventually burst and you will have to replace a few of them each year, but it really is not much work at all and well worth it - especially given a cost of $0. You can always find people trying to get rid of good sized rocks. Look on Craig's list.
We were looking at some possible residential investment properties over the weekend. Several of them had fire pits in the back yards. Not being well versed with this trend I said "why do these people have an open well in their yard?" when I saw the first one. Our landscaper had tried to talk us into one on our house and my mate and I just scratched our heads. I can see the appeal in the late autumn but it seems like we would not use it more than that because of the climate where we are on the east coast.
Anyone have one? Would you see this as a positive in a house you were looking to buy or rent?
Common here (some in Minneapolis and St. Paul, but much more so in the suburbs, exurbs and small towns and cities around the Twin Cities). In the fall, one smells them in use every weekend for sure.
Lots of portable fire pits and chimineas, too. And I am seeing the occasional outdoor wood-burning oven in back yards (a friend put one in with LP backup and is large enough to roast a pig ... they use it year-round perhaps two to four nights a week, mostly for pizzas and meats). This is in the suburbs.
In the past 10-20 years, many municipalities have put very strict codes into place for new homes regarding indoor wood-burning fireplaces which require fire doors to completely seal off rooms with them, which may be pushing people outside a bit.
But if looking to purchase as a landlord, it would be one of the things on the "Nope" list for me.
I have one. I love it. We use it a lot. One of my neighbors was a renter and she had one too. She got good use out of it as well and the house never burned down! The landlord sold the house so it is no longer a rental. Don't know if it still has the pit.
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