Whoa, whoa, whoa, oh, there it goes.
Look at that. That's been sucked in there
after I built this DIY fire pit.
You guys told me you wanted to see a smokeless version.
Now, there are a ton of different videos out there,
and they use a lot of different techniques,
so I don't really know which one is the best.
And today we're going to find out.
So here's the basic firepit that I made, and it looks great, but there's no air
openings around the sides.
All the air for the flame has to come in from the top.
Went ahead and got a good fire going here.
And you can see the smoke is rising up and the biggest issue with smoke is
trying to avoid it.
And it seems like no matter where you go, the smoke is always in your face.
I think what we need to do now is bust out the smoke bombs.
These are actually smoke and mirrors that are used to test
for air leaks in HVAC systems.
And I just taped one to the end of a dowel and I'm going to light this thing up
and move it around the fire to see how the air gets pulled in
for combustion there for the fire.
I've never used these before,
so I have no idea how much this is going to smoke or what it's going to do.
So let's find out.
All right. I'm going to light this thing up.
This thing's going like spark or what? Oh, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa.
All right, let's see.
Where the smoke is being pulled in.
So it's not being pulled in at all into the sides here.
There you can see it's really getting sucked down in there from that top edge.
But right there, that's where it's getting the airflow from.
All right. Well, that was kind of cool.
So I want to convert my fire pit into a smokeless fire pit design.
They actually sell
commercial versions of smokeless fire pits,
and the most popular version is the solo stove.
Well, let me show you exactly how that works and looks on the commercial version.
And then we can look at how I'm going to do the alterations to my own fire pit.
The way the solo stove works is it's kind of like an insulated coffee mug.
So there's actually an outer liner here, and then there is also an inner layer
where the fire goes, and that leaves this space in between
where the air can flow, except instead of it being a vacuum, like
in your coffee mug, it's going to be open so that air can flow through it.
So air comes in through
these sets of holes right here, and then they show this on the picture
and most of it goes in here in the bottom and goes up to the firewood.
And that just is the primary ignition and spurs the fire.
But at the same time, some of that air is going to flow up this chamber.
And as it's going up, it's going to get heated
and then it's going to come out of these series of holes up here,
and that is going to provide air flow to the top of the fire.
Now, of course, the fire pit that I've built looks nothing like that.
And it has a primary base of stone, and then we have a steel insert fire ring.
So the first thing we're going to do
is remove some of those bricks around the bottom,
and that's going to allow the cold air to come in, just like on the solo stove.
Now, some air will then come in straight from the bottom up into the firebox,
and then the rest of it is going to be coming up here.
But we need a place for it to come out at the top.
So we need some of those holes.
But the question is, do we want big holes, small holes or maybe medium size holes?
And I don't know the answer to that.
So that's all we're going to test and find out today.
Now, there is about a two inch gap in between the ground
and the bottom of the firing.
So what I'll do is put in a layer of rock and then build that up two inches
to reach to the bottom of the ring.
And that means we'll also need some holes around the bottom so that we can let
that air come in through the bottom as well as travel on to the top
says that air is heated up, it rises up and then comes out of the holes
to the top of the fire,
giving it some more oxygen and allowing that smoke to be burned off.
And what is the secondary combustion?
So that is exactly what we're looking for. That's our main goal.
And another thing that I'm really hoping we can get
is some of those flames actually shooting out of the top holes.
And that happens when that air is
so hot and superheated, it ignites coming straight out of the holes.
It looks like it's a burner on top of a stove.
And if we can get that, that will be absolutely amazing.
So that's the idea behind what we're going to do. Let's get going.
So I've gone ahead and removed four of the bricks around this entire fire
pit, one kind of on each quadrant north, south, east and west, if you will.
Honestly, that's probably the easiest way to do it.
I'm going to make sure that that air is getting to the fire.
So I pulled out the firing and then I removed almost all of the lava rock.
For all those folks who were saying the lava rock is a bad idea.
You are absolutely right.
He was a pain in the butt to try to get the ashes out from the lava rock.
But I went ahead and put some pavers in here
and these are lined directly with the stones that I remove.
So the air should be able to come in here, hit these channels
and hit the underneath of the fire, much like one of those smokeless designs.
So it's time to light up another fire and bust out the smoke bombs
or to get the fire going.
And as you can see, it is super smoky.
Now, I know that this wood is not as dry as the guy told me it was.
You saw it to me.
So, you know, that's going to provide some extra smoke,
but that should just show us how efficient we can get it.
Now, for the spirit of proper data collection on this test,
I have labeled above each of the halls ABC and the go ahead and the light this up
and then we can see if all four holes are drawing in
because kind of feel like a couple of them aren't.
All right. So we're going to start over here on the A side,
definitely drawing it in B side.
Also go to the sea side,
also drawing it in and the D side.
So we've got air flow going in on all four sides feeding into the fire.
Now. Honestly, I can't really tell a huge difference.
Definitely not in the smoke by opening up.
There's definitely more airflow, but what's it doing?
And when you put that white smoke in there
just kind of mixes with the other white smoke.
You can't really tell what's going on. But I've been whole now on you guys.
That's right. I've got an orange smoke, mom's gavels. It's on fire.
One of these up and we'll see where that air is really going.
Oh, the cat is chasing a snake.
We won't tell Susan that.
All right, let's light up this orange.
See what we can see. Oh. Oh, wow.
Oh, look at that.
It's not really going underneath and feeding the fire.
Oh, no. There it goes. Look at that. That's been sucked in there.
Oh, that's cool. Let's go to the back side.
It's just kind of like going up in the air.
It's not really going underneath the fire at all.
So I'd say just by removing the bricks,
it'll definitely give your fire more oxygen.
I just don't know.
This makes it that much more efficient, and it really doesn't
cut down on the smoke as much as I thought it might.
All right. We definitely have
the supply air that we need for that smokeless design.
But now we need to distribute it
out of the top for that coveted secondary combustion in that heated air.
So I want to take the firing into the shop
and we can start drilling some holes with heavy.
Let's talk about the location
and the size of the holes, because I am somewhat of a nerd.
I went ahead and looked up the patent for this hollow stove and I found it.
So they say that the holes can range in size all the way up
to 4.8 inches at the top, and then the lower holes are one inch.
But I have seen other videos here on YouTube where people are using
all the way up to two inches and all the way down to a half inch.
So what I'm thinking is we try them all out
and see what the airflow looks like coming out of them.
And I'll do that all on the same ring, and
then we'll throw the smoke bombs in there and see how that air is shooting out
and see if it tells us anything about the airflow for that secondary combustion.
I got the firing set up on the bench and I'm hoping that
this is a good system to drill it in.
I think I'm going to drill from the inside,
but it kind of looks like it's just like an inter-dimensional portal.
I could just reach in there, pull out.
Nice. I want to evenly spaced out the holes.
I'm using this little trick that I saw from Hackman,
who's like the Godfather of Smokeless DIY Firepits here on YouTube.
He uses blue tape so that I know the exact distance of it with the blue tape.
Now I can take it off, put it on a flat surface,
make my measurements, and then put it back on.
And it just makes it really easy.
Instead of trying to get a tape measure
in on this curved surface and mark everything,
now I can just use the center punch
on there and that'll give me a good start for drilling my holes.
I'm going to start off with the one and a half inch
and I'm going to use a whole saw to do that.
Then go to the one inch with another halsall
and then move over to a step bit.
I will be wearing some protection, which has a nice little facemask on it too.
And you know, we're just going to go Mad Max on this thing and
hopefully I don't drill through my bench, see how it goes.
I found it a lot easier to drill some pilot holes in the ring
first before going in with that larger hole saw.
I'm also spraying some WD 40 multi-use product on there
to keep things lubricated.
A WD 40 brand is the sponsor.
Today's video I'm using the trigger pro non aerosol can here
and is great for spraying down
a large area but still having control and not making a lot of mess.
Now what obviously helps lubricate the cut,
but it was also making a little slurry of chips in the liquid there.
So instead of the chips flying off,
they're kind of bunching together around the hole
because of the lubrication and the liquid. They're holding them together.
Every time I'm working with the WD 40 Original Formula,
it just takes me back to being a kid in my garage,
working with my dad, either my bike or the lawnmower.
And there's just a great heritage in history with WD 40 Brand,
but they are more than just their original formula.
They have a full range of next level solutions to help you get the job done
right, including their specialist line up with the dry lube.
But white lithium grease and rust remover, which are some of my favorites.
I'm going to link down below in the description
where you can go check them out and where to buy them.
And a big thank you to WD 40 brand for sponsoring today's video.
I heard. I'm super excited about this.
This thing is looking awesome.
So here on the A-side,
I've got the one and a half inch holes, I've got five of them.
They're on the B side, we've got the one inch holes.
And I did seven of them over here.
I did half inch holes on the C side
and I did ten and then I double that amount actually a little bit more.
And I did 22 holes over here on the opening.
So I'm going to be able to light these up.
We're going to put some smoke bombs in here and see where the airflow goes.
But first, I'll stoke up a fire and get it going and really heat up this firing.
All right. We've been going for about 45 minutes now.
And you can see we are still very smoky.
But I've got the little smoke bombs.
I just got a little piece of two by four and I'm going to light it
and then set it in the hole so I can kind of have my hands free.
And we'll start with the side
with the one and a half inch holes, and then I'll try to move it around
and we can see how that smoke is coming out of those holes, if any.
And I know there's gonna be a bunch of big leaks, so let's check it out.
All right, guys, I'm jumping in from the next day,
and I took a seat because I needed after the beating I took last night.
I'll give you the highlights.
But basically, I was trying to get the smoke to come through the holes and show
which ones were the best.
And it went everywhere except through the holes.
And that's because of these tumbled stones.
These stones are just uneven and organic. They look amazing.
I love the look at them, but they just have so many gaps in the smoke in the air.
We're going everywhere except through those holes,
so we're going to try to make this work still.
I've got some kwikset mortar and I'm going to put it around
the inside to try to fill up all the gaps in the top two rows,
and then we'll put the ring back on there and see if we can make it work.
But yeah, if you're thinking about using tumbled stones for a smokeless fire. But.
Yeah. Maybe don't do that.
The motor is all set up and honestly,
it's turned out way better than I expected.
It doesn't look good, but everything is very solid now.
Nothing is shaking anymore.
And more importantly, all of the gaps are plugged up.
So now I can put the ring back in here.
We can really get a test to see if that air starts flowing out.
Now, there are going to be some gaps around the rim.
I already did a little test of it, so I am going to put some aluminum foil
underneath the lip of the ring just to act as a little gasket.
But don't worry, there will be foil in there at the end.
I've got a plan for that.
All right. We were ready for the fire, but I want to show you real quick.
I did go ahead and put some gravel in there, as well
as a paver stone so that that'll be a lot easier to clean everything out.
Also, you'll notice a little support block in the opening for the supply air.
And I just cut a couple of bricks into two thirds
and then put those in there
because I did see that it was sagging and it needed that support.
Hopefully it doesn't cut down too much on the airflow.
All right. The fire is starting to get going.
But I realize that, you know,
smoke grenades only last for so long and I have to keep buying them.
So I got a fog machine.
I get a little bit out of control here, guys.
But if I just shoot it in a little bit down here, I can see the air sucking in
and I see a lot of it coming out of these top holes, which is great.
A little leakage here around the top.
But the interesting thing is that I see it coming out of the larger
holes all the way around the other side.
I think that's just because those holes are so much larger
that there's more surface area out there
and the air is going to go to the path of least resistance .
So what I want to do is plug some of those up
before the fire gets too big
and test out the other ones to see how much we can
get out of these little holes here.
Get the holes plugged up and I'm going to throw some smoke in there.
Oh, check that out.
Come on over here.
Let me put it in the air holes over here on this side.
Oh, yeah, that's coming out a lot better.
The next day we ran out of light yesterday,
so I want to hit it with the orange smoke bombs this morning
and see if we can get a little bit better view of what's going on.
All right. Here we go.
Oh, look at it. Oh, you can really see it
coming out of the ones with the multiple holes over there.
A lot is escaping underneath.
Let's go to this other side.
Oh, wow. There we go.
There's some good streams coming out.
Think we're really missing is maybe some of the air holes at the bottom,
because you can see it's kind of fighting to get in there.
So after all that testing and looking at the smoke,
I decided to go with the half inch holes because when I was looking at the larger
holes, the one and a half and the one inch holes,
it seemed that the air would just
kind of flow out and not be as forceful, which makes sense
because it's a larger opening. And so the air's probably moving slower.
So with the half inch holes, it can get more towards that fire
and then one inch spacing or two inch spacing.
Why don't we meet in the middle?
So we get this first section
laid out for the holes and it's going to have
15 of a half inch holes and they're going to be spaced an inch and a half.
Now, at the bottom, I'm actually doing some supply holes
and those are going to be spaced at three and three quarters of an inch.
And I may have six of those.
So it should give the fire a lot of air on the bottom
as well as provide that secondary combustion, the air up at the top .
At least that's the theory.
That was a ton of drilling, but I installed it and it looks great.
I also sunk down the paper to be flush with the stone,
so we're going to get some good airflow at the bottom.
I do have the aluminum foil underneath there.
You'll still see,
but I'm going to do a mortar bit around there to get even with it.
But I would do that later because I want to get this fire in tonight.
All right, guys, are about 20 minutes
in, and I'm going to hit this thing with the fog machine and see what happens.
Oh, definitely getting a lot of leakage around the top.
Aluminum foil gasket is not so hot.
Oh, but look at that pouring out of the holes over here.
We're still getting some smoke, but you can see the fire is popping
because this is not the driest world. And I think no matter what
we do, we're going to be getting some smoke on this one.
All right. So yesterday's fire was pretty good, but I think we can do better.
Even though it did start off really clean.
There was some smoke that kind of worked its way in.
And then I rearranged the logs and it kind of went away.
Then it came back and I really think that that's due to the wood.
So I want to give it one more go.
I went ahead and I put a layer of mortar around the top of the ring
because there was a little bit of smoke escaping on the smoke bombs.
And I also got some wood from my dad that's been dry for like five years.
So it's gonna be way better than what we used,
and we're going to go for it one last time, see if we can really get
a smokeless fire and
see if we can get those superheated flames coming out of the side so we can do.
All right, guys, this is the last try for the video.
I've got the TV ready.
Let's fire this thing up and see if we can get some sweet, sweet
secondary combustion flames.
All right, it's starting up.
Here we go. All right.
We've got a little bit smoky, just like last time.
I'm going to rearrange it now and try to get some better airflow in there.
We were about a half hour in now,
and this thing is putting out almost no smoke.
This is a huge improvement even over that last one with that wet wood.
So the dry wood makes all the difference.
Now, the only thing left to do is shooting flames out of the side.
Let's go for it.
I'm just going to chunk wood on until it melts through the earth.
I don't know if we're quite there yet,
but I'm pretty sure I'm seeing something coming out of those holes.
Oh, man. Scarlet.
Oh, look at that.
Oh, man. Flames coming out.
That is so fantastic.
All right, guys, I'm chalking this one up as a huge win.
I am so pleased with how this turned out.
And most importantly, almost no smoke.
If you want, check out some
more outdoor projects like refinishing your deck or maybe storage underneath it.
I've got a playlist cued up for you right there.
I want to give a big thank you to those folks
that have been joining the Football Builders Club.
And until next time, guys get out there and build something awesome.