How to build a fire pit

How To Build A Fire Pit In Your Garden

Looking to add that bit extra to your garden? You can liven the look of your home up with a nice toasty fire pit. It’s easier to make a great looking fire pit than you may think. We’ve written a step by step guide to help you on your way to toasting marshmallows on a summers night.

Get a FREE Quote

  1. Preparation
  2. What will you need? In order to build a fire pit here are a few of the items you will need:

    – Shovel (Mighty Products Garden Trench Square Mouth Shovel with Steel Handle)
    – String (Tallon Just Stationery 100m String Ball – White)
    – Wooden stakes / markers (20 Pack 12″ (300mm) Treated SITE PEGS Wooden Stakes Posts PEGS Garden Fence)
    – Gravel (Wave Noa Gravel, 1 kg)
    – Stones / Bricks (Class B Engineering Bricks – Perforated – 215x102x65 – Priced Pack of 300)
    – Concrete mix (Hanson Multi Purpose Concrete Easy to Use Just Add Water)

  3. Plan out the size & shape
  4. Do you want a round fire pit or a square one? This is your planning time. Take some flags or sticks and put them around the area that you are wanting to place your fire pit. Keep lining this up until you’re happy with it, you don’t want to completely build the pit & have to redo it!

    To make sure that you get it as circular as possible you could put a steak in the middle with some string at a chosen length & put markers at various points as you walk around.

  5. Get the shovel out
  6. It’s time to dig & approximately 18 inches down at that. This is the most labor intensive part of the work. You should be digging in the area that you have marked out, discard the dirt when you’re done.

  7. Add drainage (Gravel)
  8. Fill about a quarter of the whole with gravel for drainage purposes. This also provides a strong base.

  9. Level it with sand
  10. Now the best thing to do is level the hole with sand, this helps secure the bricks in place and makes a good surface for the burning materials.

  11. Lay the bricks or stones
  12. Around the edges start laying the bricks, you can leave little bits of gaps between each for the next step (hint, it’s concrete) to fill in and make it more secure. You can do this in any particular way you wish, putting the stones inwards or across each other in a wall like method both works.

  13. Apply concrete between each layer
  14. As you may have guessed, to keep the layers of bricks together apply some concrete between each. Using some ready mix, quick set concrete should work fine for this. This step isn’t necessary, but if your planning on the pit withstanding the test of time, I would strongly advise it!

  15. Fill your fire & get it started
  16. That’s pretty much it, let the concrete all set and once that happens your ready to go, throw in your wood or cole & get a fire going.

Get a quote on bricklaying work

No matter how big or small, if you want something built, even a fire pit, we can help get a professional to do it for you! Get a quote on bricklaying work by filling out the form below:


About Mat

A complete novice trying to navigate in the world of DIY. I bought my first home about 2 years ago & ever since I've been trying to research & learn how best to tackle common household problems.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *