I built one in my back yard a couple of years ago, and every so often make a bonfire for the heck of it. Yesterday was a cold grey day, very depressing; so I cheered myself up sitting in a lawn chair near the fire.
We used to. Nothing really fancy, just a shallow depression with a ring of rocks around it. One of the rocks was the tip of the iceberg type which is why we added the others to make it a fire pit. When I had some excavation done I had that big rock buried so no more fire pit. I’m considering some kind of outdoor fireplace.
We do. Been too rainy to sit around it yet, but we’ll be using it soon. It’s nice for a night but we still prefer the real deal: A campfire in a secluded National Forest unimproved campsite with no one around. Typically after a long day of hiking.
Yes, I tend to use it to clean fallen brush more then something to use firewood with. Yes it is a celebratory bon fire, but also functional.
When we lived in Baltimore, we would throw monthly bonfire parties. We lived out in the woods, and most of our friends lived in apartments, so the parties were pretty popular. We ended up building a huge firepit- about six feet across, and two feet high- just for those parties.
Yep. A pretty nice one, too. Patio-sized, since bonfires are contraindicated in suburbia. Sitting by the fire watching the stars and the planes go over is one of our favorite activities in the evening.
Oh Yeah. About 4 feet in diameter. We use it for fun, and to burn up downed trees/branches in the yard. We have to be VERY careful as we live in the Colorado Mountains where fire danger is a HUGE thing. It never goes untended, and I always hook up a hose to keep the ‘yard’ moist around it. And to cool the fire and back it down if it seems too big. And then always snuff out the fire with at least about 20 gallons of water. And then I do it again (I’ve got to be able to sleep).
Great to sit around the fire and fiddle with the guitar. Since moving to the mountains, we don’t go camping anymore. No point in it.
Fire pit with our friendly moose in front of it. Named him Frederick. As much as I want to feed him an apple or something, that would be wrong. That pic was just from my cell phone while I was on the deck. I ALWAYS make sure to not get too close. I’m on his land, not the other way around. Moose seem docile because they aren’t afraid of anything. Not a lesson you want to learn first hand.
And I have to brag. This is the view from our deck. Those mountains, Bross and Lincoln are fourteeners. Quite happy to be at home.
Cherries of course come with pits. I’m waiting for it to warm up a bit before I go out and move snow.
I have one in my new place, and coming from a dry (wildfire-prone) climate, I looked up ordinances for them. “Must be extinguished before sunset”. Uh, what? I’m wracking my brain, but I can’t come up with a logical reason for that one. Don’t most people want a fire in the evening? Who sits around the fire pit at noon?
I leveled off a bit of a hill when we moved in and dug out a hole and put some rocks we found on Lake Michigan beaches around it. Problem is, it collapses in on itself a bit more every winter, so we just ordered a metal ring to go inside it to keep the walls up. We probably have a fire in it 6-15 times every year, depending on how wet the spring and fall are (it holds water like a soup bowl due to the fact that our soil is pretty clayey).
Yep. One of these, that I put in our backyard. I did modify it slightly by removing one brick from the bottom so it could draw air a little better but we use it a fair amount over the year. We’ve even done steaks on the grill a la camping and they were fantastic!
I wish! Our tiny back yard is crammed against a regional park and the back of the structure. There’s just not sufficient safe room.
It’s one of my fond memories growing up, sitting in the back yard on summer evenings with the grownups drinking and telling stories, as night fell, kids running around in the darkness, then coming to sit by that fire.
There is something so elemental about sitting around a fire, talking.
Dang. I do want one again some day!
Yes! It’s still pretty swampy by my fire pit but I was able to burn a bunch of downed limbs today. I have a large supply of dead ash trees which produce really nice fire wood. If it hadn’t started raining, I’d be out there sitting by the fire right now.
I was going to build a fancy gas powered fire pit when we built out new house in 2010. Turned out, we didn’t really know were to put it. Instead bout a $99 fire pit like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Landmann-28345-Stars-Moons-Firepit/dp/B000JQR3KA/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=firepit&qid=1554681914&s=gateway&sr=8-3&th=1
Its been great. Semi- portable. We’ve had it in various sections of the yard. Can really burn hot if put in a layer of coals and then all the wood you care to burn. Designs are nice. I find it much easier than if I had put in a set fire pit. YMMV
Yes! We had our first fire of the season Saturday night!
We do, but it is already too hot to have a fire. Supposed to be in the 90s today.
We burned our christmas tree (in pieces!). WOOF! They really do go up like paper.
Got one on the patio, a burn barrel out by the garage and a woodstove in the shop.
I like fire.
Why isthis the first thing that popped into my head after reading your post, Gato? 
Kinda. There had been some matter of “fire pit” - a 2’x4’ rectangled area near the back fence - when I moved in, in 2005. I’ve always just kept using it as such, to burn brush but will occasionally have friends over to sit around it.
I haven’t had a fire there in a while. Haven’t cleaned it out in a while, either. Last year I quite enjoyed mowing directly over it instead of around it. So I’m not sure what I’ll do with it this year.
I like them, and it’s something my wife would really enjoy, but we just don’t have anywhere to put one. The back yard is 100% deck (it’s a split corner lot on a hill), and putting it in the front yard would be kind of weird. We have a 3-4 car parking pad, but it would also be weird putting it there. We have a clear area on one side of the house, but it’s not level. Something for the next house, I guess.
We have a fire pit. When I bought the house, you could only see part of the six-foot diameter ring. The ring was just bricks arranged in a circle, and half of them were buried under the sod. Around 2010 or 2011 I dug up all of the bricks, dug a shallow pit with a more-or-less level bottom, and arranged slightly-curved cinder blocks in a four-foot circle. Since there were a few blocks leftover from something or other, I put a second level around the back. We had maple trees in and around the property, so there were many, many leaves in Autumn. The pit was handy for burning them, and for burning storm damage and limbs I’d cut from the arbor vitaes and cedars.
Mrs. L.A. liked sitting out on the patio and having a fire, but a couple of things happened: First, I’m not sure it’s legal anymore to burn stuff in fire pits. People do it, and there’s an exception for ‘recreational’ fires; but our pit doesn’t actually conform to regulations, and firewood – and not leaves or yard debris – is specified for recreational fires. So I only use the fire pit when I have to. The other thing is that we got a new deck a few years ago, and it extends closer to the fire pit than the patio did. Mrs. L.A. is worried I’ll catch the deck’s roof on fire. (I assured her I would not, and demonstrated such the couple of times I’ve lit a fire.)