Fire pit area

[bennybennybenny]

Hi everyone,

I am currently in the process of building a fire pit area in my backyard. I have removed the weeds and dirt, levelled the area and installed garden edging to keep the 7mm cottage stones that I'm going to put on the ground in place. I am at the stage now where I need to finish preparing for the stones to be put in place.

In my mind I was thinking of putting down a 25mm layer of road base and compacting this and then a 50mm layer of my cottage stones on top. I'm now thinking that I'm going to put a layer of weed mat down, not so much to keep weeds from growing but mainly to stop the stones mixing with any dirt or getting pushed down into the dirt - so would I be best to put the weed matting down first and then my road base and stones directly on top of the road base, or put down the road base, weed matting on top of this and then finally the stones directly on top of the matting?

I'm also working out how many tonnes of stone I need to fill this area. The total area is 21.98m2 so if I want to have a 50mm layer of stones, one online calculator I've used says I will need 2 tonnes of stones - does this sound right to everyone?

Any help and guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers Benny 

[EricL]

Hi @bennybennybenny

It looks fantastic. Your fire pit and the stones blend in well together. Any nighttime photos of the fire pit in action would be much appreciated. My only other recommendation is to get some 120cm Mini Bamboo Torch in conjunction with Waxworks Citronella Scented Lamp Oil - 1L to keep the mozzies away. 

We look forward to seeing your next project.

Eric

[bennybennybenny]

Thanks @Noyade, backyard is getting there slowly, just a little bit more work to do - need to mulch with pea straw around my fruit trees, have some flowers and mulch to go into that gap you can see in the photos that runs in between the lawn and the firepit area and do some general weeding and tidying.

[bennybennybenny]

Thank you @EricL! I'll be sure to post up some photos once the seats are in and some nighttime ones of the pit in action.

Great idea to put in some Bamboo Torches for the mozzies, I'll grab some next time I'm at Bunnings.

Cheers Benny

[jasejw]

Which pebbles or gravel did you end up going with mate?

[JacobZ]

Hi @jasejw,

It looks like he went with a 14mm stone that was purchased in bulk.

Allow me to tag @bennybennybenny so he is notified of your question. Hopefully he will respond shortly.

Jacob

[bennybennybenny]

Hi @jasejw ,

Yes, I ended up going with 14mm cottage stones from my local landscape supplier - they call them "Rosedale Brown 14mm Stones".

Hope this helps. 

Cheers Benny

[jasejw]

Thanks for the reply! How are the underfoot - not too soft or hard? That's the tricky bit.

[bennybennybenny]

No worries @jasejw! I find the sizing really good, not so large that you feel like you're going to break an ankle walking on them but not too small that you find yourself sinking down too much. My landscape supplier also does this type of stone in a 20mm size which I would seriously consider as the one thing I find with 20mm is I have a lot of black birds that frequent my yard and 14mm is small enough that they do flick a little bit of it around when scratching around the edges, but not much. I so also have young kids and 14mm is a good size for them to still be able to walk on it okay as well and if you have a decent lip on any edging this should be fine. I think a lot also comes down to the prepapration of the ground and making sure you have a good thick layer of roadbase compacted underneath. Anyway, hope this helps.

Cheers Benny