Firepit from Smith & Hawken
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 09.12.05
Back yard fire pits of the sort offered by Smith and Hawken (pictured) are growing in popularity. The best of them, like this one, are designed to do more than just hold the embers up or get sparks in your drink. Landscape designers are calling these yard and deck ad-ons "fire features". We can see why they'd rename them to dissociate memories of the backyard cement block "pits" of the 1950's. Something more than re-marketing nostaligia is going on here, though, as there are hundreds of models available, ranging from the look of steel drum base on the ground to a teetering tower-of-fire-hazard on wheels. Some see the 'fire feature' as the logical add on to outdoor cooking, giving the deck a family room look. Sales babble aside, the real test comes on a skewer. When guest arrival is spread across the evening, make up Shesh Kabobs in advance, using long metal skewers, and let them cook their own as they arrive.
Earlier this yeat, TreeHugger posted a story on a fire pit made of 100% copper. Though not often stated, ordinary steel is commonly in 95 to 98% recycled range.
Wonder if these things bypass the indoor fireplace or woodstove emission standards?
=== Addendum to Original Post Follows ===
Wood burning impact on air quality is measured by EPA using the surrogate indicators of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and sulfur dioxide. As the following links indicate, a relatively small fraction of the total land area of the US is at risk for exceedance of air quality standards for these. It is in such areas that limitations are put upon use and design of wood burning devices.
For a US map depicting counties which do not attain air quality standards for PM-10 Particulate Matter click here. The PM-10 non-attainment map indicates places where added smoke from fire places, grilles, wood stoves, and fire pits would be considered a health risk. For counties not meeting carbon monoxide standards, a hazard strongly influenced by transportation fuel combustion as well as by wood burning, click here. Finally, for counties with sulfur dioxide non-attainment problems click here.
Another article about burning wood on treehugger. Or should I say, advertisement.
===author's response follows===
No advertising has been accepted from the posted source. This particular design was selected simply because it seem to look the best of the great many reviewed. Perhaps the implication is that wood burning is unacceptable. Fill us in please as to why!
I'm all for sustainable wood burning with low-to-zero net emissions. I grew up in a nicely forested area of the Poconos in northeastern PA, and I can honestly say we never once had to cut down a tree to get firewood to burn. If you maintain trees around your property (I have a meager 1/3 acre now), you're going to be doing plenty of trimming and pruning. Trees age and die. Why let them go to waste?
I think it's very treehuggerish to grow a stand of fast-growing hybrid trees for a permanently sustainable woodlot. You get your heat from somewhere -- is it more sustainable than from a small self-renewing grove? It's not like we go out looking for old-stand timber to burn in the fireplace or masonry stove...
Burning wood doesn't fit on this blog. I have been coming here for a year or so, and usually I approve of everything I see, but this post stands out like a sore thumb. This fireplace does nothing good for our enviroment.
=== author's response follows ===
The choices for managamenet of tree trimmings are: landfilling, letting cut branches decay on the earth's surface, and open burning. Landfilling and natural decay don't create a smoke exposure; yet all three ultimately release all C02 embodied in the wood. Obviously, any sort of burning can be a drawback in air quality limited areas. But in rural areas, burning is less of a problem. Reasonable people must agree that the woodburning "good" might be outweighed by the "bad" in places where the human footprint already falls heavily on the envionment. One size does not fit all is an equally fair statement it seems to us. Lets see what others have to say on it.
Composting trimmings allows nutrients back into the soil. Ash is no where near as beneficial.
When trees fall down in the forest, the natural course of things is for them to decay and renourish the forest floor, not to mention providing housing for animals and insects in the meantime. When those fallen trees are carted off and burned, the cycle is broken. Thus this is ESPECIALLY a problem in rural areas.
And yes, forest fires are part of the natural cycle too, but it's a completely different thing from selective burning.
It's this sort of ignorance that I'm not happy to see on treehugger, but seems to be becoming the norm.
Clearly you haven't kept up with the times -- there are numerous 'zero-net-carbon' fireplaces now. They release no more carbon than the decay of the wood releases -- it just releases it all at once with useful heat as a byproduct, rather than the slow release of heat from composting. "Ash is no where near as beneficial" you say, but my argument is "negligible heat over the course of two years is no where near as beneficial."
The simple fact of the matter is that trees don't just take in nutrients from the soil. They also collect and convert energy from the sun. If I burn wood efficiently, I'm essentially using wood as solar storage, in part. If I grow trees quickly and cut them down when their growth begins to slow, only to plant NEW trees in their place, essentially I'm moving more nutrients from the deeper areas of the soil up to the top in the form of the leaves and smaller branches that I compost.
I object to your use of the term 'ignorance'. It is the nature of life to take matter in and put energy out.
So, what DO you use for heating your home, Anonymous? Oil? Natural gas? Can you honestly tell me that either of these are better than a truly renewable resource? Or perhaps you've had enough money to upgrade to all sorts of solar/geothermal/whatever? Or perhaps you live in an area where you don't need heating?
Biofuel? Essentially the same as wood. You're not composting the corn, you're condensing it and burning it.
Human body heat? You're fast-composting the food you eat and using its heat as a byproduct, instead of fully composting it.
I still maintain that an efficient fireplace makes more sense than many other options, just as I think eating tomatoes rather than composting them makes more sense.
"ignorance" indeed. Let's look at the whole picture here.
And to get back toward the original topic, this open-burning firepit can't possibly be efficient. By its very nature, wood gasses must necessarily escape before being completely burned. Yuck.
JBB
I can't imagine a more wasteful way of obtaining heat than burning it in an open pit outside.
JBB - you're obviously only interested in yourself and not the environment. The name of the site is TREEHUGGER. Trees grown in FORESTS. Which you only seem interested in controlling for your own benefit. This world does not exist for you to burn! Quit trying to justify your decisions.