If you’re looking for an easy DIY inexpensive firepit tutorial, then you’ve come to the right place.
Summer and fall are the best times to be outside, enjoying nature. One aspect we love most about summer and fall are bonfires. However, it’s hard to achieve that true bonfire feel in anything but a firepit. Chimenea’s just don’t get the job done.
It’s amazing how something like sitting around a fire can bring people together and get them talking. Add hot dogs, smores, or food cooking in heavy duty tin-foil and you’ve got a party!
After my husband got way to fire happy and cracked the Chimenea we had, we decided to build a real firepit.
Here’s how we made our DIY Inexpensive Firepit:
You can read about it below, or watch the video that my husband created that I embedded below:
Step 1. Contact your Fire Marshal
I called my local Fire Marshal and ask what size “recreational” firepit we were allowed to have in our residential backyard. (This is not for burning brush piles people- its “recreational”).
Step 2. Gather Your Supplies
- Head down to your local home improvement or landscape supply store.
- Go into the garden department.
- Look at the various retaining wall and/or fire stone options they have.
- We decided to go with concrete the retaining wall blocks because they were $1.25 each.
- We bought about 40 which means it cost us around $50 to build.
- They come in many colors so you can get all fancy if you want to.
Note: If you don’t have any cash but you’ve got a lot of rocks, we also wrote an article about how to build a fire pit with rocks: Build Your Own Backyard Fire pit Using Free Materials.
Step 3. Prep Your Fire pit Area
- No mortar is needed. It’s all about stacking them correctly.
- We broke one block in half using chisel and hammer on purpose. (This is for level 2 of the pit so that air can reach the fire).
- We picked a flat area in the back yard and cleared out the grass/pine straw.
Step 4: Stack the bricks.
Fire pit Level 1-
We began the base by placing 10 “blocks” in a circle on the ground. They fit together nicely.
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| Level 1 Block Formation |
Fire Pit Level 2-
Then we started level two, placing these blocks so that they were centered on the cracks of the level 1 blocks. This way the structure is sturdy. (You don’t want 10 blocks stacked 4 high straight on top of one another because you are just asking for them to fall over.)
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| Each level should be stacked so blocks are centered on crack below it. |
Also on level two, we had to place the broken in half blocks midway between two neighboring blocks on opposite sides. That way air could get into the pit and we don’t have a smoky mess.
Fire Pit Level 3-
Level three was the same as level one. 10 whole blocks stacked centered on the crack of the blocks below.
Fire Pit Level 4-
Level four is 10 whole blocks stacked centered on the crack of the blocks below and the lip left on these blocks formed a lip around the inside. You can see the small ridge on the inside of each top block in the pictures below. That’s it!
Size of Opening- I’ve had many people ask about the size of the opening when the project is complete and it is just around 2ft in diameter.
Once you’ve got your firepit build, you can throw a fun firepit party! Here’s my post on Hosting a backyard firepit party.So this is how we made an easy DIY inexpensive firepit ourselves with only $60.
We use it all the time and it’s a great way to entertain guests. If you plan to do a lot of entertaining and want to keep your people comfortable, check out my article on 10 Must Have Backyard Fire Pit Accessories.
Please note that we are not firepit professionals, if you copy this design and use the fire pit, you do so at your own risk. This was made for simple recreational use.
Always be careful with animals and small children around firepits. The sides of the pit are NOT made to be sat upon. The fire should not be raging above the blocks at the top of the pit.
If you liked this post you might also like these other posts from Thrifty Little Mom:
Kim’s is the party planning, cupcake loving, celebration catalyst behind the Thrifty Little Mom Blog. Kim was a pro event planner for over 7 years before she became a full-time blogger. Kim is the author of: Live, Save, Spend, Repeat: The Life You Want with the Money You Have. She’s been featured on Time.com, Money.com, Good Housekeeping, Women’s Day and more! Kim aims to inspire you to create parties, celebrations and gatherings that everyone loves!
Melissa says
Was it hard to chisel two bricks in half and Im also wondering if it was hard to chisel the lips off of most of the bricks? Can you buy bricks without the lips to skip this step? Thanks!!
Kim Anderson says
Melissa, yes you can just buy bricks without lips. My husband chose those because they were cheaper and he had that little hammer and chisel to get it done. Just look around at your local home improvement store in the retaining wall/bricks area and find ones with that Trapezoid shape without the lip. Good luck!!
Amy says
Excellent article, thanks! Can you update the link to the retaining wall blocks you used (or give me the approximate size)? I’m absolutely going to do this!
Kim Anderson says
Amy, thanks for letting me know about the link issue. I updated it. 12 in. L x 4 in. H x 7 in. should be the size we used. Hope you enjoy building yours and using it as much as we do!
Debbie says
Excellent instructions on the fire pit, I am alone so I just got one of those fire bowls at HD last year, but all your suggestions about the smores are spot on I am going to a “bon fire” this weekend and am gong to ask the hostess if I can bring some of the smores kits. thank you
Kim Anderson says
Debbie that’s awesome!! I hope your smore kits are big hit!
Jason Styles says
Did you use an adhesive bond the bricks? Also do you have a grate in your pit. Or, you use firwood that you just place in there.
Kim Anderson says
No adhesive was used. We just stacked them as shown. If it makes you more comfortable you could try that with your pit. We don’t have a grate but lots of people have asked about doing it so I shared the diameter. We just use firewood from trees we had taken down in our yard and place it right into the pit. We usually cook in tin foil pockets or on roasting sticks. Hope that helps!
cole bernath says
That’s perfect because I’m trying to look for an inexpesive easy firepit for my backyard
Kim Anderson says
Thanks for the comment! Hope you find it easy to put together!
Chris says
Ha, Simple and great idea!
Tina says
Thank u so much for your help i have started it got the bricks put just had surgery for my cancer i had but i want this to sit and relax by and u helped alot by telling me how to build it u r so wonderful for giving me the help i need to get started thanks alot
Kim Anderson says
Tina, I’m glad you found the tutorial helpful. Be super careful and maybe get some burly men to build it for you in exchange for pizza and lemonade. Hope you love it!
Bonnie says
Love this. Trying to figure out how to use beach rocks since we have a shoreline full of them…that probably would be more expensive in the long run than the one you made. If you have any comment on this it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Kim Anderson says
Bonnie, If you have a way of moving them and they are on your property, I think it would be pretty inexpensive.
Karen Anderson says
Thanks for the tutorial. My husband’s birthday is coming up and I have wanted to do this. He loves to spend time outside with a fire and his bloodhounds. We have a sad crumbling little store bought pit that is about 5 yrs old. This will be an amazing gift!! I can’t wait to invite friends over 😉
Kim Anderson says
Karen! He will love this! My husband spends so many hours outside enjoying the pit. It is a very frugal gift that keeps on giving!
Sara says
This is awesome! I’ve always wanted a fire pit, but we don’t really have a place for it. I know it would be well used too!
Kim Anderson says
If you don’t have a lot of space a chiminea might be a better backyard option for you.
Derek Young says
Have you had any problems with the stones starting to crack? I was thinking of doing this same time of pattern but was warned about that so I didn’t go any further.
Kim Anderson says
That’s a good questions Derek. When I saw your question I ran out to inspect the pit so I could give you an accurate answer as we have had it for over a year now and I have never noticed this as a problem. My husband has used this many, many hours in the last year and upon inspection it appears that several of the stones have a single hairline crack that runs from the dead center of the stone on the inside of the pit edge to 1/3 or 1/2 way in the middle. None of them are all the way through or appear to be compromising the stability of pit. If that changes in the future though I’ll be sure to note that in the post and let people know. There may be stones in the garden center that don’t have that potential weak point in the middle like the stones we used that form at angles. We also built one out of creek bed rocks at our families house in the mountains and that one is doing just fine. Our chiminea literally cracked right down the back which was really kind of scary. At least with these stones if you have issues, it’s only a few bucks to switch out the stone as opposed to having to ditch the entire thing like we had to do with our chiminea and those things are like $80 each. It probably also depends on how much you use it. We have a ton of wood and my husband likes being outside so it gets used on average 3 times a week for us. If you are building if for weekends or recreational use, I don’t know that you would get those cracks for sometime but again, I’m no landscaper or fire pit architect. I’m just showing people how we made ours and we still like the design. Thanks again for the comment.
Kim Anderson says
UPDATE since what I wrote above. A tree fell on the firepit over the weekend during a storm and only one stack of blocks that took the biggest hit cracked straight down the center. Now I have to go buy 4 new bricks at $1.50 to replace them and it should be good as new.
Chad Pfeffer says
This is the best fire pit tutorial I have seen on the web yet. The air holes are often overlooked! And this is so economical! Nice!
Kim Anderson says
Thanks for the comment! My engineer husband designed it and he thinks about stuff like air holes. lol Glad you found the tutorial helpful.
Tom Hawkins says
You are very modest giving your husband the credit for the air holes. God would be Proud. I agree with the others that this is a very nicely done illustration of an inexpensive fire pit.
Just one question: Is there any issue or concern since the firepit is sitting on brown dead grass or straw or whatever, that the fire would spread to the grass when using the firepit? Thanks, God Bless, and have a great week
Lisa says
Looks like the perfect place to spend a relaxing evening! I’ve wondered how hard it would be to build a fire pit. You’ve made it sound reasonably easy. Pinned for future reference. Thanks for the tutorial!
Kim Anderson says
Lisa, glad you liked the post and are considering building one. They are really great for entertaining or getting out of the house in the evenings.
Charlene says
What a great tutorial. So glad I read because I would not have thought about the air vents on level 2. Thank u!
Kim Anderson says
I think that was my husband’s engineering brain at work because I would not have thought about that either. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Melinda says
Did you put anything on the ground inside ?like rocks or sand
Kim Anderson says
Melinda, you could if you wanted to but our backyard is mostly pin needles and dirt in the area we built ours. You may want to just clear out the grass and get the area inside down to dirt. We literally just threw the wood in and started burning. We are also kind of “thrifty” about stuff so that was just more cost that we didn’t find necessary with the condition of our yard. It’s really natural back there. 🙂
David says
Any chance you could give me the diameter of the opening at the top of this in so I can price a grate that would fit? Thanks for the great instructions!
Kim Anderson says
David, the opening is just a little over 2 ft. Hope that helps!
Kris brizuela says
This is what a a detailed pin is supposed to be! Amazing and what an AWSOME job!
Kim Anderson says
Hey thanks! Hope you can build one yourself!
Anonymous says
I plan on doing this great project. Were did you purchase your blocks?
Kim Anderson says
Home Depot