You can look at the burning fire endlessly. It is especially pleasant to do this against the backdrop of nature. You can equip a fireplace in a country house or in the country and look at the flames in the room. But not always a fireplace can be built indoors - many house designs have restrictions on the use of open fire.
Do-it-yourself ready-made outdoor fireplace - photo
In this case, you can easily build a hearth on the street and discuss world problems next to it with friends on long summer evenings. How to build an outdoor fireplace with your own hands? It's pretty simple. An outdoor fireplace is not the most complex building structure, in this article we have written a step-by-step instruction with photos and diagrams especially for you.
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What are the types of outdoor fireplaces
You can decorate an outdoor fireplace in your suburban area in various ways. A lot depends on whether you will simply enjoy the view of an open flame or whether your fireplace will still be used as a barbecue or as a stove.
In the event that an outdoor fireplace on your site will be just an anchor structure for a relaxation area, to create coziness in a corner of your site, then you can build a fireplace as a classic-shaped home.
Such a structure will have all the classic elements of a home fireplace. You have to make the actual firebox and chimney. These are the main elements. You can also equip the fireplace with additional elements, such as a firewood stand or decorative shelves. The only difference from a home fireplace will be protection against moisture from the atmosphere. To do this, you can organize a canopy around the fireplace.
garden fireplace - photo
The material for the manufacture of outdoor fireplaces can be very different: from a light metal hearth to a capital stone structure. Naturally, any material used must be refractory.
Alternatively, an outdoor fireplace can be connected to the fence surrounding your property. It is interesting to create a fireplace in the corner of the site, at the junction of the walls of the fence. Also, a fireplace on the street can be made separately. But in this case, you will have to work harder on the surrounding landscape design so that the outdoor hearth does not look like a foreign object. To do this, you can use, for example, a hedge, planting trees. You can also build a decorative wall that will fit your outdoor hearth into the surrounding space.
In addition, it must be remembered that ready-made outdoor fireplaces are also on sale, which are simply installed in a specific place. Such devices have a steel sheet, usually round in shape. Also, ready-made outdoor fireplaces can be equipped with grills for barbecue or grill.Such structures can be surrounded by a special fire belt, which is a platform filled with non-combustible material.
Outdoor fireplace can be mobile. You can clean it in the cold season in the pantry, and in the warm season install it in any place you like.
brick fireplace built into the wall of the fence
It is possible to make such portable and free-standing fireplaces if you have skills in working with metal. You will have to cut metal sheets, bend them and weld them into a finished structure.
portable iron fireplace
However, a portable outdoor fireplace should be a massive structure at all. It is quite possible to make it from scraps of metal, forming a hearth out of them. An elementary outdoor fireplace may look like a large metal basket. It is quite possible to make it from pieces of reinforcement and scraps of a metal sheet, fixing it together by welding or even knitting wire. With certain creative abilities, such a portable fireplace can be given an unusual shape, for example, make it in the form of a flying saucer.
Necessary elements of an outdoor fireplace
To prevent you and your guests from coughing and sneezing near a burning outdoor fireplace, you need to consider a smoke exhaust system. The simplest outdoor fireplace in the form of an open hearth is devoid of such devices, and in windy weather, fire and smoke in such a hearth can give you trouble.
Also, an outdoor fireplace can be equipped with additional devices for grilling or barbecue. So to speak, to combine the pleasant with the useful. In this case, you can not only warm yourself by the fire, but also cook various dishes on it, delighting your guests.
fireplace with barbecue
But if you aim for more, then the outdoor fireplace can be combined with a summer kitchen. Many residents of country houses build a summer kitchen for themselves in order to cook in it on summer days. The hearth in such a structure, which looks like an open gazebo, may well be used for aesthetic, decorative purposes.
The process of building an outdoor fireplace
We recommend that you follow this step-by-step instruction, clearly following all the steps, you will be 100% satisfied with the result!
1. Create a project
Let's try to figure out how you can build an outdoor fireplace with a barbecue or grill with your own hands. It will be a rather serious structure, the construction of which begins with the creation of a project and the formation of a foundation.
outdoor fireplace drawing
When creating a project, you will have to determine the location of the future barbecue fireplace. It is better to place it in accordance with the existing wind rose, so that the smoke from the fire is carried outside the site. If it is not possible to position the fireplace in this way, then it must have a serious chimney that draws out all the products of combustion.
You can prevent drafts at the location of the outdoor barbecue grill with the help of a hedge or decorative walls.
Actually, the outdoor fireplace-stove is a box with three walls. This is the minimum number of elements for an open fireplace. It can also be equipped with a fixed chimney and various additional equipment, such as tables for butchering meat or a niche shelf for drying firewood.
2. Choose a material
We proceed to the choice of material for the construction of an outdoor fireplace. Let's say we want to build a brick building.In this case, the inner surface, and preferably the entire fireplace, was built of clinker bricks. It is quite simple to build.
clinker brick
But for decorative cladding, you can choose any non-combustible material. You might want to tile your outdoor fireplace in a wild stone look for a brutal design, or you might opt for a lighter, more playful cladding.
We also procure building mixtures for laying and fixing cladding for construction. Do not forget to prepare the metal parts: barbecue grill, grate. For the inner surface of the chimney pipe of a stationary outdoor fireplace, you can use an asbestos-cement pipe.
3. Start building: foundation
We begin to transfer the drawing into reality. Our brick outdoor fireplace will have a solid weight and therefore, when building it, we cannot do without a foundation.
Under the outdoor fireplace, you can make a simple foundation in the form of a slab with a thickness of about 15 centimeters. To do this, we mark the place, remove the upper fertile layer and dig a pit. At the bottom of the pit we lay and ram a pillow of sand and gravel. We create a formwork and place metal bars of the reinforcing frame inside it. We pour the concrete solution and wait for it to completely solidify.
slab foundation
Also, a finished reinforced concrete slab can be laid as a base.
The part of the base that protrudes above the ground can be ennobled by overlaying it with decorative tiles or rubble stone.
4. Brickwork: ordinal scheme
To connect the laid out bricks, we use a solution of sand and cement in a ratio of 2 to 1.When laying a stationary outdoor fireplace, a plasticizer and a frost-resistant additive can be added to the mixture. When laying the firebox, an additive is added to the fixing mixture to increase heat resistance. Such an additive can be made independently by adding one and a half kilograms of salt to a bucket of the mixture.
brickwork
Of particular importance is the choice of material for lining the inner surface of the furnace. To do this, you can use several types of materials:
- Having a porous structure. These include shell rock or sandstone.
- Durable natural stones such as basalt or dolomite.
do-it-yourself bricklaying
To check the heat resistance of the material yourself, place an old tire on the test sample and set fire to it. Unstable material will collapse - such materials should not be in direct contact with fire, otherwise your creation will collapse after the first fire!
5. Decorate an outdoor fireplace
You can paint an outdoor fireplace with various architectural details. A good choice would be to create an arch. In this case, a template is pre-made from a wooden shield, on which the bricks that make up the arch arch are laid out. The last to be inserted is the upper brick, which plays the role of a kind of castle. After the mortar dries and the bricks are fastened, the wooden template is removed.
brick arch
The surface of the constructed outdoor barbecue can be lined with decorative tiles.
decorative tiling
Do-it-yourself outdoor fireplace: video instruction from pouring the foundation to facing
