Will this work?!?!

[knittel]

Hello all,

I am planning on building an outdoor fireplace. The unit will set far from the house (at least 30 feet), but about 10 feet from trees. Here was my plan. I was going to make use of a fireplace insert. I would build the "fireplace" out of cinder block and use a class A chimney pipe to go from the insert to the top.

Would that work? I saw someone refer to "chimney cinder blocks". Is there such a thing? Would that be better for the chimney part? Is the Class A pipe over kill (i.e. would stove pipe be fine)? In the fireplace section, should I line the cinder blocks with fire bricks? Or, am I completely out of my mind?

Thanks for all of your help...chris

 

[knittel]

Hey Dylan,

Yes, it would be just to give off some heat on nippy nights. I live in Sacramento, so it doesn't get super cold. I like the look of a stand alone fireplace, so would prefer something like this to a fire ring.

chris

 

[wg_bent]

Look here for interesting info on fireplaces and such...

(broken link removed)

And read all there is in this set of links:

http://www.mha-net.org/docs/v8n2/v8n2-arc.htm

You'll get some ideas.

And while these are intended as project for learning to build indoor masonry heaters, I found the reading and building of these heaters absolutely amazing.

http://www.mha-net.org/html/projects.htm

I'd love to build one of these just for the heck of doing it some day, even if it were outside my house. Now and then I like doing something...just to see if I can.

To more directly answer your question, look at how they build the flue's in these fireplaces. For outside use, if it's ease of building, and you don't want to mess with the masonry flue clay blocks, I'd think a piece of stove pipe would be just fine. A few years ago a neighbor of mine built an outdoor fire place and used the clay blocks for the chimney. Its was a sort of Rumsford type design and gave off a lot of nice heat on a cool fall evening. Easy for you since in CA you can just build one on a concrete pad. This guy (in upstate NY) dug a 6' foundation for his. It was amazing!

Have fun!