grill as a fire pit

[Aaron Fude]

Hi,

I have a ton of scraps from home construction and rather than throw it out I'd like to burn it. (Many reasons: nails, limits on trash amount and weight, would use soot on my compost pile.) I don't have a proper fire pit but I do have a large bowl grill. Anything wrong with using it as a fire pit?

Thanks,

Aaron

[<nospam]

Possibly. Grills are built and rated for specific maximum temperatures. If you exceed that temp on yours, either by overloading it or burning the wrong material, you risk failure and collapse of the grill.

[Doug Brown]

Does you municipality or local gov&#39;t have any regulations or bylaws on fire pits and what can and cannot be burned?

[Stormin Mormon]

Should work fine. I&#39;ve also seen people use a large steel tire rim. Note that I said steel. Aluminum or magnesium won&#39;t work properly.

I&#39;ve heard not to burn pressure treated wood. It has arsenic in it. Construction scrap is likely to be white pine, which puts out a lot of creosote. Fire pit should work well. Fireplace or wood stove, it would cresosote deposit your chimney.

[ransley]

I didnt know nails burned, well you learn something every day.

[William Munny]

Tons of wood, burn in a grill, got a few months of 24x7 to do it?

[windcrest]

We have a campfire on the patio about three nights a week in a grill bowl, works great, just watch out if it has plastic wheels and an ember falls on the wheel it will melt a wheel. And train the kids to keep the fire going without smoke, its good for em, and it lets the adults BS longer. You&#39;ll need some nice cold Bohemian beer to go with that fire too.

[Daniel Prince]

All metals will burn if you get them hot enough and supply enough oxygen. A wood fire is not nearly hot enough to burn nails. An acetylene torch with the oxygen turned up would burn nails. Triple zero steel wool will burn very easily and can be used as tinder.

-- I don&#39;t understand why they make gourmet cat foods. I have known many cats in my life and none of them were gourmets. They were all gourmands!

[HeyBub]

Alternative:

Dig a rectangular pit about 3&#39; deep. Pile all your stuff in there and set it alight.

When its burned down to coals pitch in a dismembered pig wrapped in foil and cover the whole business with a layer of dirt.

Come back in about six hours wearing grass skirts and carrying drinks that have umbrellas.

[cshenk]

"Aaron Fude" wrote

Yes and no. In small sets (dont let it get too high!) and set on a burn safe flooring (incase you let it get too high and burns through) it can be done. It&#39;s just a sort of higher fire pit afterall with a thinner bottom.

I&#39;d be more concerned about the wood. Pre-treated &#39;PT&#39; wood isn&#39;t good to burn. Combination of dangerous chemicals to breathe as well as I think dangerous to the environment when burned (they degrade ok in landfill though). I;m not sure that burning would leave a suitable soot for the composte if growing food with it.

[Phisherman]

Usually burning wood in a grill will ruin it due to the longer-lasting higher temperatures. The burning wood will also bend the grate used for cooking. Too much ash in the compost is not good either, it will make it alkaline. You can alway bury the scraps.