Hello, it is that rare time of the year when we become quite social. We have a proper bbq in the back garden but fancy something in the front for ease and to provide some heat for the evenings. What are the relative advantages of chiminea vs fire pits? We have relatively small children and various pets wandering about but we do have a good stack of seasoned wood. Thanks.
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Personally I’d be very wary of having a fire breathing mythical creature around children/ pets / neighbours 😉

Having said that we have a chiminea. It can get ferociously hot, so you’ll need to keep kids/pets back, but you’d need to with a fire pit as well. You’ll also need to make sure you put it on some thing that won’t suffer from the heat.

Ours is good and comes out at evening gatherings, etc. Keeps everyone nice and warm

I am not sure a lion/goat/snake hybrid would be very good around children or small animals ?

Fire pits give you something very mesmerising to look at with the flame but you’ll absolutely stink of smoke.

We’re just off to buy a chiminea for that reason- you still get the heat and an extra 2-3 hours outside in the evening but much less smoke in your face

Fire pits also have the advantage of burning wood of any size i suppose- chiminea grills can be quite small and often have a mesh in the chimney so you can’t just drop stuff down

Depends what you burn on the fire pit, proper logs need to be properly seasoned but recycled pressed firelogs, etc. burn quite well with minimal smoke

Ive a friend who made his own fire pit from sheet steel aprox 3 feet square and 11 inches deep, he also made a grill for the top so there was a huge amount of space to cook on. Once everyone has been fed you just remove the grill and it resumes normal fire duties. I’d love to get something along that line myself.

We have a fire pit that I made from spare stone in the garden, beach style. It looks good and cost nowt

Tumble drier drum (sourced for free from the tip) makes an excellent garden heater. It’ll absolutely tear through your wood stash but you’ll definitely be warm…..

Don’t get a Chimera, get one of these: https://www.facebook.com/BurnedbyDesign

We used to have a chiminea and although we enjoyed it, we found that it got ridiculously hot – fire would soon leap out of the mesh on all 3 sides and the comments above re less smoke are just not true.

We now have a fire pit table that we can sit around – very civilised and keeps a good distance between children and the hot stuff. There is still smoke but it does tend to depend on the fuel rather than anything else. Asda’s bags of fire wood seem the best for reduced smoke and its plenty hot enough.

We have a Somerset fire pit that we use in the garden and take camping.
somerset fire pit
and use a pioneer grill over the top when using as a bbq from campfire grill uk

My firepit got used once. Unless it’s a perfectly still evening you’ll stink afterward and yalso use too much wood. A tall chiminea on a stand is a better bet as when you’re sitting around it the smoke will be dispersed above you and they hold the heat far better.

As above. The smoke out of a firepit gets almost everywhere from the ground up. Very annoying for yourself and any guests.

£00.2

D.

I cook 95% of our dishes on live fire at our restaurant, if you want to avoid lots of smoke don’t burn the bark and only use seasoned then kiln dried timber.For £300 or so you could get a proQ hotsmoker and just use the base as a fire but then you can cook amazing food too. I got mine from Alyson at http://www.hotsmoked.co.uk just be careful as real BBQ is very addictive!

Sitting by the chimenea having a beer is certainly a pleasant way to spend some time, particularly for those of us without a log burner!

Here’s a short video of a clay one my partner made for me.

Chimenea vid 1

Chimenea vid 2

(the smoke neatly demonstrates a slight design flaw in the stacking on this version 😉 but once its going with dry wood the smoke goes up the chimney)

Tumble drier drum is thin sheet steel and full of plastic.

Washing machine drum on the other hand, burns hot and fast and not much smoke 🙂

I’ve got one just like that spooky (well mine has 3 aluminium legs pop riveted on the outside and answers to the name ‘sputnik’. Only snag is it doesn’t radiate as much heat sideways as I’d like. I’ve got a big empty gas cylinder that I might turn into a patio wood burner (with a tall chimney) this summer when I get a chance.

I knocked up a curved pyramid one, spotted the design in the local garden centre.

Stands about 1.2m tall. It’s got a base welded in now too. It’s starting to get a nice patina with sitting in the garage. Not had chance to fire it up, and it doesn’t really go with the new house so I might sell it and make something more in fitting.

@breadcrumb how much?

That is really nice breadcrumb. Much prefer the look of that to the generic clay pot belly things.

Built a firepit in our garden with heaps of old bricks. For some reason the previous owners decided pea gravel and building sand what what they dreamed for a part of their garden. Pit lined with sand and pea gravel and seating around it, probs about 1m square. Looked into some fireproof concrete to line it but it seems OK and. It’s bloody nice to sit round with mates and beers, poking logs (not gay or owt) and creating marshmallows. Cost 0 just about an hour to dig and place bricks. Trailer of jarrah cheap and very little smoke.

We have a large cast-iron chiminea, holds heat very well & the plate around the chimney is great for warming up cups of mulled wine.
A mate has a sheet steel pyramid version, it burns fast but doesn’t seem to radiate much heat laterally, instead it just roars right up the chimney.

@breadcrumb, that curved pyramid design is great, I’d better get reading the ‘learn how to weld’ thread to try to make one!

deadslow- emailed you back.

northenmatt & PeteW- thanks, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Went for a chiminea with bbq and firepit capabilities in the end. Currently sat with a cider in front of roaring flames ruminating on bbq’d sausages watching the local fauna emerge from the woods…ace end to a week. Thanks for all the advice.

😉

Sputnik?