I was looking at fire pit designs. There’s no shortage of ideas out there in internetland if you want examples.
But the examples fall into one of two categories: designed to look good (impressive/sleek/rustic/etc.) or DIY for cheap.
The examples that make it into the blogs or websites with the title of “42 Awesome Fire Pit Ideas” (or similar) are not designed to function well.
Caveat: this applies to fire pits meant to burn wood. Gas-burning fire pits are a different matter.
The common theme I noticed with the vast majority of the fire pits is that their designs are bad for combustion. Good combustion requires fresh air. The designs I saw had no fresh air inlet.
“But it’s outside – there’s fresh air all around! You don’t need an air inlet,” you may object.
I’d agree if the fire pit were wide enough. But most of these fancy-looking designs are smallish boxes that don’t leave much room around the outside for new air to filter in.
Think of the fire pit as a very short chimney. What would happen to a normal fireplace if it was closed except for at the top of the chimney? Something like that is happening on these fire pits with solid walls and floor. The hot air is going out the top. The only way for replacement air to get in is to fight against the exhaust air by coming down the sides of the fire pit.
For best results (better fire, less smoke, more complete combustion), a fire pit needs to have a way for fresh air to get at the bottom of the fire.
My suggestion is to space some holes in the fire pit walls near the bottom and to have the logs up on a grate.
In case you are wondering, all our fires so far have just been logs on the ground – no grate, but no walls either.
For wickedness burns like a fire; It consumes briars and thorns; It even sets the thickets of the forest aflame And they roll upward in a column of smoke.
Isaiah 9:18
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We had spring once. It was about 70 degrees and sunny for a day or two.
That was last week.
Now we have ice and snow. Not sure how the plants are going to like it, but this is how they look.
Some tulips:
These should be daffodils soon.
Well, they’re daffodils now, just not quite blooming yet. I meant they should be blooming soon.
And a Japanese maple tree.
I think this one is my favorite, for the coated-in-ice photos.
He casts forth His ice as fragments; Who can stand before His cold?
Psalm 147:17
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I was planning on keeping the blog schedule at twice per week, but it’s been getting more difficult to get that done each week. Last week I ended up posting only once, so I decided to make that the new schedule.
Here’s my blogging frequency history.
Week 1: Every day
Weeks 2-259: thrice a week
Weeks 260-532: twice a week
Weeks 533+: once a week
Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.
Psalm 55:22
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I bought a new washing machine from Home Depot last week.
Side note: why is a dishwasher a dishwasher but a clotheswasher is just a washer? Aren’t they both washing machines? Likewise, a car wash is also a washing machine. It even goes one step farther, as it is a machine for washing machines. Anyway, I just wanted to remind people that a dishwasher is a washing machine too.
Now back to our regular content…
What I find half amusing-half annoying is that since then, Home Depot has sent me a few emails touting their washers and dryers and asking me to shop for those items.
I realize I fit the profile of someone who bought a washer but not a dryer therefore I should be in the market for a dryer, but that’s not what their email said. It was just “Hey, we have deals on washers and dryers!”
For what it’s worth, I’m not in the market for a dryer. (Specifically, a clothes dryer. I should have checked that they weren’t actually trying to sell me a hair dryer, or a paint dryer).
In case you were wondering, we had bought a GE washer about 2.5 years ago. And the GE warranty is only 1 year. It failed (motor wouldn’t run, so no spinning or agitating, just filling and draining – plus the basket was leaking from the middle, probably the water leaking onto the motor assembly is what caused the motor to fail). I estimated the replacement parts would have been close to $300. Add in the cost for a service call plus labor for someone to fix it, and that’s the price of a new clotheswasher.
So that’s why we bought a new washer.
And it’s a Maytag. They don’t have a 1-year warranty. They have a 10-year warranty on the motor and the basket – the two components that failed in the old machine.
He placed the laver between the tent of meeting and the altar and put water in it for washing.
Exodus 40:30
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This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
