I’ve decided to start blogging it up again. A lot has happened since the last post. Long story short, we bought a house near the university and got a chihuahua. Also, I built a fire pit in the back yard the first week we lived there. And I’m going to show you how to build one too for about $60!
Let’s Go!
Here’s what you’ll need:
8 Normal-ass cinder blocks
8 Flat Cinder Blocks (I got the ones with holes in the middle. They make solid ones too.)
And Optionally, 4 24″ x 24″ Concrete Pavers for that chic finished look.
Now, you should be able to figure it out on your own from here. Buuuuut I’ll break it down a bit further for ya.
First, find a nice flat spot to put your fire pit. The concrete pavers will get all wibbly-wobbly if they aren’t on a flat surface. You don’t want that.
Next, put the pavers down in a nice square formation. You can put some sand or fine gravel in the cracks between for a little more finished look. There will be some irregular spacing in there, so something to fill it in looks better. But it’s not necessary.
If the pavers are just a little wobbly, that’s OK. They’ll eventually settle under the weight of the cinder blocks and FIRE. OK, now set the first layer of cinder blocks down making a square. Center it inside the square you made with the pavers. Lay them out like in the drawing below:
See how the corners work? The one butts up against the other so there’s a square inside and a square outside.
Obviously you want to put the holes in your blocks oriented vertically, so you can’t see them from the side. I turned one of my blocks on its side to feed air to the fire. That’s probably not necessary since it isn’t that deep. The blocks are 8″ x 8″ x 16″.
Next you’ll put the flat blocks on top. Here’s the important thing: Don’t just set each flat block on top of one big block. You want each flat block to be laying across half of one big block and half of the next big block. You can see what I mean in the first picture of the finished fire pit.
You can water-seal the outside and top of the cinder blocks if you want, with Thomson’s Water Seal. They even make it in a spray-can version which would make it real easy. I didn’t do that though.
Now all you gotta do is set some shit on fire and kick back & enjoy!
cinder block fire pit in action
The Dirty Loft 
Would like to know how this has held up over time. I have been told you need to use fire bricks since the cement blocks have air pockets that can make the blocks crack when heated.
is there a problem with heat and the blocks ?????
Nope. The blocks are “fire resistant” per Lowes website. I had a few of the blocks on the top layer crack, though I think it happened upon cooling or because of weather.