How to Build a Fire Pit | This Old House

[Music] kate here's what we're going to build your fire pit out of these a precast concrete block and they have a curve on them so when we put them together they're going to make a circle well inside that circle is going to sit this steel ring now to get started we have to dig a hole and inside that hole we're going to put some gravel and compact it because that's going to give us a good base for these block to sit on what we're going to do is hold the shovel about three inches beyond the block step down lift up a little and make a mark all the way around the outside of the ring all right now let's get the block out of the way using a square shovel i want you to take and slide it underneath the grass and we're going to save as much of this grass as we can so that we can patch in around the fire pit when we're done now these are the concrete block that we looked at earlier that we're going to build the fire pit up now our first block is going to sit right here our whole first cost is going to be buried below grid now to give stability to this course we're going to put pack in underneath it and tamp that so it's really hard now if you look in the wheelbarrow there that's our pack it's made up of three-quarter inch stone and stone dust mixed together and that'll pack hot as a rock and we'll have a great base to build on sounds good now the one thing i noticed when we were digging that your subsoil here was clay so i dug a hole in the middle and i'm gonna fill that hole with three quarter inch stone and what this is going to do is going to allow rain water to drain right out of the pit so it won't flood so i'm going to fill this with stone and then we'll start with a pack okay now what i'm going to do is i'm going to spread it about an inch or two thick and then we're going to take the hand tamper and pack it down we're going to have to put in several layers of pack because we can only compact it an inch or two at a time because that's all we can properly tamp with our hand tamper now the pack is perfect it's four inches below the height of the grass and that's just where we want to set our block now we're going to use the ring as a guide to set the block so we're going to put this right in the middle all right how's that look to you pretty good maybe a little this way okay now we're going to take the block and start leveling them out right around the ring i'm going to take my first block i'm going to put it in here tight up against our ring and then using the rubber hammer i'm going to set it down in place and here's the key we have to make sure that this block is level in the end and level across all right okay take that block and put it right up against this one now this one's our key we're gonna level off for this one so tap that down a little now check it with your level and make sure it's leveled this way how's it look perfect okay all set for the last one okay drop that in bang it in tight there you go perfect looks good all right grab that side of the ring lift up and come with me now with our first course level i'm just gonna clean off the block we're going to put down a little concrete block adhesive i'm going to put down two bands on this side and a little on this side now i want you to put it down but i want to put it down so it spans that joint so that's right in the middle all right wiggle it a little bit how's your front look okay good all right well grab another one it's as easy as that we'll work our way around all right the last block perfect fit all right let's drop the ring in perfect now we're going to take and fill this up with three-quarter inch stone up to the bottom of the ring that's going to protect the block from the fire that looks pretty good kate we're just taking shape a little bit so that we have a low spot in the center all right now i think we should put the grass back in place take some of that nice top soil we saved and put about an inch or two right in there fill it even a little more that's good kate work your way all the way around i'm just gonna take pieces of grass and fill in the void well it's not a fire pit without a fire no it's not and we got one look at it doesn't it look great yeah [Music]

Channel: This Old House

Views: 2,052,443

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Fire, fire pit, Outdoor Recreation, fall, winter, stone, Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit!, Do It Yourself, Burn, Flame, pit, hardscaping, yard, Burning, roger cook, backyard, episode, tv show, landscaping ideas, landscaping for beginners, how to landscape around house, landscaping how to guide

Id: vmFUNIC3ZnQ

Length: 5min 31sec (331 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 24 2014