Fire pits are supposed to be the centerpiece of any backyard, and in order to fulfill this role they have to look perfect. But after years of use a fire pit can start to rust and lose its appeal. But don’t worry the rust can be removed, and your fire pit restored to its former glory.
To remove rust from a fire pit you can use liquids with high acidity like vinegar and lemon juice or you can use a chemical based rust dissolver. After you let the solution sit for 15 minutes you can use a piece of cloth to remove the rust from the fire pit.
But before you start scrubbing the rust out, you should first know that there are multiple types of rust, and each one of them will respond better to some cleaning methods, than others. So let’s first start by discussing the 4 different types of rust.
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The 4 Different Types of Rust
Technically speaking all rust is iron oxide, which is the result of iron interacting with water and oxygen. But depending on how, where, and for how long the rust has been there, it can be separated in 4 categories.
Stable Rust
This type of rust occurs when iron is left for very long periods of time uncleaned or untreated. It’s easily recognizable due to it’s uniform appearance. While this type or rust is not the hardest to remove, it’s also not the easiest.
Flash Rust
Flash rust is how all rust starts. It can appear in as little as 6 hours on untreated surfaces. Flash rust is usually a very bright orange, so it’s very easy to recognize. This is the easiest type of rust to remove, if you have the right tools near, you can get rid of it in just a couple of minutes.
Flaking Rust
This type of rust will take up more volume than the metal, and as a result it will displace it. Flaking rust usually appears near corners, or in areas where the coat of ain’t ends, usually making the paint coat peel off, hence the name.
Pitting Rust
This is the worst type of rust that you can encounter, but luckily fire pits shouldn’t have this problem. This pitting rust usually appears on lover quality metal tools or constructions, that have air pockets inside of them. Over time rust develops inside those pockets, that ends up eating the metal from the inside.
Why the Type of Rust Maters
Knowing what type of rust you are dealing with is very important. If you have a simple problem with flash rust you can easily solve it with some pieces of cloth and some vinegar. But if you are dealing with stable rust you will need a little more.
Now let’s see how to remove that rust and make the fire pit look like new.
How to Remove Rust
There are a lot of different ways to remove rust, simply scrubbing it with a brush can remove it, but that can scratch your fire pit, and it can take hours of constant efforts. So instead of giving you 200 methods to remove rust, I am going to focus on only 7 ways in which you can easily remove rust.
Removing Rust Using Vinegar
Vinegar is exceptionally good at removing rust, and you most definitely have a bottle of vinegar in your house.
Vinegar is acidic, which means that it can melt things away. While (thankfully) it’s not powerful enough to hurt us, if you leave some vinegar on a rusty surface for 10 minutes, you should be able to remove the rust with a piece of cloth.
The type of vinegar that you use it’s not really that important, but the higher the acidity, the faster it will work.
One very important thing to keep in mind is that you should make sure that you rinse the fire pit after you are done removing the rust with vinegar. If you leave vinegar on the fire pit for too long it will damage the iron.
Removing Rust Using Lemon Juice
Lemons contain citric acid, which is even more potent than the acetic acid found in vinegar.
Overall the same things that apply to vinegar apply to lemon juice. So apply it on the surface with rust, leave it there for 10 minutes and then clean the area with a piece of cloth.
And again, don’t forget to rinse the area after you are done.
Removing Rust Using Soft Drinks
While this might come as a surprise a lot of acidic soft drinks are actually more acidic than vinegar. So some of them are even better at removing rust than vinegar.
What I said about vinegar and lemon juice also applies to soft drinks.
Removing Rust Using Baking Soda
Now let’s move away from liquids and talk about something different.
To use baking soda you will first want to mix it with some water until you obtain a paste.
After you mix the right amounts you want to spread the paste on the rusted surface, and leave it there for at least a couple of hours. After which you can scrub the rust away.
While baking soda needs more time to act than vinegar, lemon juice or sodas, it’s a lot more efficient, so I would recommend you to use it if you are dealing with some really bad rust.
The fact that you will need quite a lot of baking soda to cover a bigger area can also be a problem. But leaving aside this baking soda is very efficient at removing rust.
Removing Rust Using Using Potatoes
Surprisingly potatoes are quite efficient at removing rust.
Potatoes contain oxalic acid which is very potent, the reason why we don’t think about potatoes as being acidic is due to the low quantity of acid that they have.
Sprinkling some salt over the potato will also help you bring out the flavor, get rid of the rust faster, as the salt will provide some extra scrubbing power.
Removing Rust Using a Mix of Ingredients
One great thing about all the methods that I’ve mentioned until now is that they can be combined.
So if a piece of rust really gives you problems you can use some baking powder mixed with lemon juice on it, and then scrub it with a potato.
Removing Rust Using Commercial Products
In the end I think it’s also worth discussing commercial products.
Sometimes the rusting has gone so far that home made solutions might not work, when this happens you shouldn’t abandon your fire pit yet, instead you can look for some commercial rust removing products.
But commercial products can sometimes be better than the homemade solutions, and sometimes worse. There are probably thousands of rust removers out there, so even if I wanted I couldn’t test all of them. Instead I will tell you about the only ones that I’ve used and had good results.
The first one is WD-40. I always have at least one WD-40 in the house because it’s extremely useful. While I wouldn’t recommend it if you need to remove stable rust on large areas. I would definitely recommend you to use it for nuts, bolts, chains, and everything in between. WD-40 can work on a fire pit, but only if you are dealing with flash rust.
If you are dealing with a big surface covered with rust CLR is the way to go. You will usually find it in a 28 ounces bottle, so it should be more than enough for any fire pit. And it’s plant based, so unlike most cleaners on the market it’s not chemical. As for how efficient it is, from personal experience I can say that it always gets the job done. CLR is also multi purpose, so after you are done removing the rust from your fire pit, you can use it to remove calcium from the sink or toilet.
Those two are the ones that I use when I need rust removed. WD-40 for small things like nuts and bolts, and for hard to reach places. And CLR when I have to clean a bigger area.
How to Make Your Fire Pit Look Like New
Now that you managed to remove the rust from the fire pit you might notice that the fire pit doesn’t look that great. While the rust is gone the affected area doesn’t look that great, the color is gone and scratch marks all are over it. But that’s normal, there is no way to avoid this.
Luckily it’s not that hard to make your fire pit look like new. For this you will need:
- Start off by sanding off all the paint from the fire pit. You will want to start with a coarse grit sandpaper, and insist until you remove all the paint. Normally the paint shouldn’t be too thick so you should finish in under 30 minutes. But if you are having a hard time removing the paint you can always try using a paint remover like this one.
- Now that all the paint is gone it’s time to move to a finer sandpaper and smoothen out the fire pit. Use smooth circular motions, until there are no noticeable scratches on or pits.
- Now it’s time to apply the first coat of sealant. Keep the spray as far away as possible from the fire pit, ant try to make it as even as possible, otherwise rust might appear again, or the paint will peel off immediately
- After the sealant has dried it’s time to apply the paint. Just like in the case of the sealant, try to stay as far away as possible, and do your best to make it even.
- After the paint ries, it’s time to apply the final sealant coat.
Now your fire pit should be as shiny as it was when you got it. But if you don’t do something to prevent the rust from taking over, you will have to go over this process all again, and at some point your fire pit won’t be able to support it any more. So let’s see what you can do to prevent rust.
How to Prevent Rust on Your Fire Pit
There are a multitude of things that you can do to prevent rust, from general maintenance, to providing cover for your fire pit, to simply storing the fire pit in a prepper area.
Here is a list of things that you can do to prevent rust from appearing on your fire pit:
- The first and probably the most efficient thing that you can do is to store your fire pit in a dry area when you are not using it. If you don’t have a dry, low humidity area, don’t worry. Any area with a roof should work just fine.
- If you don’t have a place to store your fire pit you can also try to use a cover. There are a multitude of options available, ranging from full body synthetic covers, to wooden and iron lids. If you go for a wooden lid, or synthetic cover, make sure that the fire pit is completely cooled off before you put them on the fire pit.
- Another thing that you can do is to remove the ash that remains in the fire pit. Ash absorbs humidity from the air, so leaving the ash sitting in the fire pit after it cooled off, it’s almost like letting it sit filled with water.
- Frequently inspecting the fire pit and removing the rust as soon as it appears will also work. Rust needs time to eat the metal, so if you deal with it as soon as it appears it will be like it wasn’t even there.
- The last thing that you can do is to occasionally clean the fire pit. As simple as it sounds this is one of the most efficient ways to keep rust away.
Final Thoughts
In the end let’s do a quick recap of what we discussed.
To remove rust from a fire pit you can use:
- Vinegar
- Lemon juice
- Soft drinks
- Baking soda
- Potatoes
- A mix of them
- Commercial products like: WD-40 and CLR
After you remove the rust you should get some Sandpaper, Spray Sealant, Spray Paint. After that you should remove all the paint using a coarse grit sandpaper, then use a finer sandpaper and remove all scratches. Apply a thin coat of sealant, after it dries apply the pain, and then another coat of sealant. Make sure that you try to make the coatings as even as possible, otherwise the paint will come off.
And finally in order to prevent rust you can:
- Move the fire pit in a dry room, or any place with a roof should prevent most rust from appearing.
- Cover your fire pit using a metal or wooden lid, or a synthetic cover. But make sure that the fire pit has cooled off before you cover it.
- Removing the ash from the fire pit is also very important, as ash absorbs a lot of humidity from the air.
- The most important thing that you can do is to regularly clean and inspect the fire pit.