Fire pit: build or buy?

[Red Boots]

I've been wanting a fire pit for ages, but my homeowner's agreement dictates that any small fires must be contained in a fire pit. Building one seems costly, but the metal fire pits you can buy seem rather flimsy. Either way, I plan to cover the surrounding area in paving stones and using a grate.

Any thoughts on which is better in the long run? I think building one would be attractive and possible add value to the property.

 

[Cole]

I live in "city limits" so I am unable to have a fire in my home. My friend's who do live in an area where fires are permitted usually have the metal fire pits. They don't seem to have any issues with them being too flimsy and whatnot. That's the root I would take.

 

[joshposh]

I vote to buy. I own my own landscaping company and I build these things all the time. In the pictures I'm going to post I was contracted by a friend of mine, and I did it for real cheap. But anyways, I'll explain it picture by picture. Here we go.

The project started out with the idea of using left over material from other projects. We had a surplus of retaining wall blocks so we decided to use those.



They were shaped in a way that they could be curved depending on the design. Below you can see that I am going to use it to border the tree. But you could use the same design and technique for a fire pit.



Here is another picture of the lower end of the project but it was a small fountain in it. Just take out the fountain and you could have a cool fire pit.



And the finish product as I was about to leave the site for the last time. Yes yes just imagine if there was a fire in the middle. Also you could easily place another line of blocks so that it could be deeper.

 

[jason]

It really depends on what you want. I like nice big fires that you can gather a crowd around, so I built my own fire pit. But I also had the room to do so.

I will say that the "cheap" ones you find at wal-mart/HD/Lowes may only get you a few years. At least here with the rain and moisture they will rust out quickly.

 

[Burg14]

We are building one this year. Our problem is that we now live in town and you can't have a big fire. You really can only use a bon-fire to cook food on. It's silly I know! I would still like to build a fire pit. I just won't build it as big as the one I had at my previous house (country).