Fire pits and outdoor fireplaces

Gas or wood

Gas lights instantly, produces no smoke, needs no storage and switches off when you go inside. If the patio is close to the house or your neighbours are close to you, gas wins on practicality every time. It needs a gas line run, which is easiest to do while the patio is being built and expensive to retrofit afterwards.

Wood is the real thing - the smell, the sound, the fact that tending it gives everyone something to do. It needs a woodpile, produces smoke that has to go somewhere sensible, and takes twenty minutes to get going. Most people who choose wood are choosing it deliberately.

The decision has to be made before the base goes in if there is any chance of gas, so we ask it early.

Fire pit or fireplace

A fire pit is social. Everyone faces in, everyone is the same distance from the heat, and the conversation is one conversation. It takes up less room and costs considerably less.

A fireplace is architectural. It gives the patio a wall and a focal point, blocks wind - which matters more than people expect on an open Macomb Township lot - and radiates heat in one direction rather than all of them. It is a significantly bigger build with a real chimney and a real footing.

Built in, not dropped on

A fire feature should be designed into the patio from the start: the base under it is different, the paver pattern works around it, the seating distances are set deliberately, and the utilities are already there. A kit dropped onto a finished patio afterwards always looks like exactly that.

We build to clearance requirements from structures and property lines, use firebrick where there is direct flame contact, and finish the surround in material that matches the patio rather than fighting it.