Rain and fire pits don’t make the best pair. And when the rainy season comes and water starts pooling in the fire pit this becomes even clearer. But fortunately there are a few things that you can do to solve this problem.
To stop water from pooling in a fire pit you can use a lid, a top or a cover. Or you could drill small holes at the base of the pit through which water can drain. Another important aspect to take into consideration is the placement of the fire pit.
So there are quite a few things that you can do to stop water from pooling. Let’s take a closer look at each of them.
Table of Contents
Cover the Fire Pit
The best thing that you can do to stop water from pooling is to cover the fire pit. It’s simple, doesn’t take a lot of time and it’s cheap.
There are a lot of things that you can use to cover your fire pit. But as you might expect some things are better than others, and some of them should be avoided at all costs.
The best and safest thing that you can use is an iron lid or a top. I personally like to stay away from wood since it can always start raining while the fire pit burns, and you don’t want to put a wooden top over a fire pit that was burning a few minutes ago.
If you have a portable fire pit, you could always get a waterproof textile cover, just make sure that the fire pit is completely cooled off before covering it.
But in a lot of cases it can be quite hard to find the right top, and a textile cover isn’t wat you need, so let’s look at the other possible options.
Drainage Holes
One other thing that you can do is to make small drainage holes near the bottom of the fire pit. While this isn’t as efficient as a cover, it will stop water from pooling, even if the fire pit will get a little wet.
A lot of fire pits are designed with such holes, but if yours isn’t you can always make them yourself. You simply drill a few small holes as close to the bottom as possible. The holes don’t have to be too big, but not too small either.
If the holes are too big there is a chance that sparks will get out through them, and if they are too small they will get blocked. A good diameter for the hole would be 0.5 inches.
Now let’s move to the next thing that you can do.
The Placement of the Fire Pit
Another thing that you can do to stop water from pooling is to build the fire pit on high ground.
If the fire pit is placed at the bottom of a slope, it will end up encircled by water which will inevitably get inside, or it will damage the fire pit over time.
If your fire pit is already placed at the bottom of a slope and you can;t move it you could try digging a small trench around the fire pit, just don’t get too close to the fire pit since this can affect its structural integrity.
Another thing to keep in mind when placing a fire pit is how much direct sunlight it will get. Ideally your fire pit will get a lot of direct sunlight. This way if water somehow manages to enter the pit, it will evaporate a lot faster than it would have if it was placed in a shady area.
What Can Happen if You Don’t Stop the Water
So now we know how to solve this problem, but a new question arises, do you really have to go through all this trouble to stop the water from pooling? What could happen if we just leave it there?
There are quite a few reasons why you should stop the water from pooling, here are just some of the most important.
The biggest reason is that the water can damage the fire pit over time. If left in water for long periods of time iron will rust and start to decompose. Mortar and bricks will also start to get soft and fall over time. So regardless of the material that your fire pit is made out, the integrity of the fire pit will suffer and you will soon have to either repair it or build a completely new one.
The next big problem is that you won’t be able to light up the fire pit until you remove the water, and letting the water evaporate on its own can take quite some time.
If you decide to remove the water yourself, there will always remain a lot of wet small pieces of wood at the bottom which will make lighting the fire a lot harder and when you finally manage to light it up you will me met with a lot of black thick smoke, so you won’t be able to sit around the fire pit for a couple of hours at least.
Final Thoughts
So overall it’s just better to stop the water from pooling from the start than removing it, or waiting for it to evaporate.
The best way to stop water from pooling is to cover the fire pit with a metal cover. But drainage holes should also help.
Letting water sit in a fire pit won’t have any immediate bad consequences but over time the integrity of the fire pit will suffer.