Would a hole help?

Well, it transpired that the fire pit had a hole; it had quite a few in fact. I (stupidly) left it out all winter, and despite it hiding under a table it still filled with water which rusted it through in places; with all the wee perforations, and seeing how thin the metal was in places, I wasn't all that comfortable at the thought of putting fire in it and toasting our tootsies under it. So, I decided that it should be retired from heating duties, and we bought a chiminea instead which arrived yesterday afternoon.

The chiminea was easy to assemble (black powder coated steel), and was pressed into service last night, fuelled by chopped up fork lift pallets (I like free fuel!), the odd charcoal briquette and one of the pre-pack fire logs that we got last year and ended up not using because they were far too smoky.

What a difference to the fire pit - much less smoke, much more heat and yet we felt much more in control than we did with the fire pit. If we have it lit later this evening, I will try and get a photo and post back

Oh, and the old fire pit..... well, it is only right that it was given something to occupy it's retirement, so today I filled it with compost and planted it up with an ivy, a couple of geraniums, a couple of dahlias and a ricinus carmencita (which is a scrawny looking thing to be honest). The perforations serve nicely as drainage holes.

 

EPAL marked, all good