fireplace on rowhouse backyard

So, my boyfriend and I have been dealing with this firepit problem for a while. We live in Windsor Terrace, and bought a LEGAL, small firepit down the street at home depot. The first and only night we used it, our crazy neighbor throws a fit, and threatens to call the fire department. We were burning one log, and quietly sharing some wine next to the fire. We put it out, and decided to solve this matter of the legality of firepits.
We finally got in touch with some higher ups at the local fire department a few weeks later, and the guy said that they sell the pits here in brooklyn, totally legit, totally legal, but we would have to measure the space out from anything combustible (trees, house, etc.) and from our hose out back. He actually said, let the dude call the fire department, and he will feel like a dumbass when they say its all fine. Another guy at the fire department advised us to use our large grill as a fire pit, and have some “hotdogs” ready, so there will be absolutely no issue. Grilling is totally legal, and no one will challenge that.
We haven’t had a chance to use the pit again because of the snow, but sure enough we will come spring. We got this house with a backyard to enjoy it and we responsibly will.
Hope this helps!

I’m sorry to have to add to this thread but let me just say that, yes, these fires can often create quite a bit of particulate matter and do cause air pollution problems in the yards. A light smell of a clean-burning woodstove emanating from a chimney in wintertime is comforting to many people although even a little wood smoke can trigger asthma and allergies for some. Mind you, I’m not totally against burning wood. As the fire engineer above points out, use well-seasoned wood, and make sure it’s hardwood, not pine. Even better, if you can get wood charcoal, that would be better. It is much, much cleaner burning than the original wood would be.

A dirty-burning fire pit or fireplace, especially one without a tall flue can cause a LOT of pollution. It’s as simple as that. It can cause a lot of problems for people living in the block. In the warmer months, when people have open windows, these kinds of fires (and even barbeques…especially with lighter fluid) can create a huge stink and get pulled right into houses.

Also, there are real fire safety issues to consider. If you put this proposed fire pit way out back than there may be much lower risk but don’t be too smug. Safety first…always! (I hope you have one of those very deep backyards!…sometimes houses are near corners and have a house from the side street up against the rear of their backyard so they can be really hemmed in by buildings.

I write this because a house in, yes, “prime Fort Greene” (sorry), had an outdoor fire that got out of control. The deck caught, the sunbrella nylon valance over it caught and then the whole house went up in flames. The two houses on either side also sustained a LOT of damage, mostly from the fire fighters immediately going up on their roofs, chopping holes and putting hoses in them to rain down water from the top floor to the basement to keep those hoses from catching fire.

The whole event and damage were ghastly. Eventually, the house that sustained the fire had its back wall collapse.

It was a long, expensive renovation after that and a lot of money, probably NOT covered by insurance, paid out to the neighbors on both sides.

Remember, for all the problems with city air, the reason it is not worse than it is already is that we heat quite a bit with “natural” gas. It makes a big difference. If we were back using coal it would be awful. Incidentally, because of last year’s run up in heating oil prices, there was some talk of fears of more wood being used in fireplaces which would add more air pollution.

By the way, there were problems in the 70’s from people burning wood as an alternate fuel. Eventually, this led to air quality standards for the wood stove and fireplace insert industry. There is a lot of info online I think.

You’ll note that many wood-burning stoves have catalytic converters which I think are often ceramic honeycombs covered in platinum. The problem with them is the stove has to reach a certain high temperature before the element heats up enough to start catalysing whatever it needs to catalyse. We were thinking of putting in a masonry stove which can be extremely clean-burning without a catalytic thingue…the fire box heats up to a high temperature and because it is not a stove with thin side, a masonry oven can super-heat with a very fast burn which is much cleaner.

The problem with a masonry stove being put in is that we would need to support the extra masonry up from the basement level into the ground floor kitchen…we still may do it though. I think they can do it with cinderblocks set on a footing.

I love the tile stoves in Germany. I less love the huge soapstone stoves from Finland. I find the big gray soapstone stoves a bit lugubrious.

I also love the idea of having a bake oven for bread…and slow cooking sounds great to me. Of course, lugging wood and cleaning out ashes sound less great. I can just see myself using it to store pots and pans I’m not using!

Does anyone have any experience putting a masonary stove into a Brooklyn rowhouse?

I’ve been meaning to get one just like that. And unless you are going to use it day-in and day-out, entertaining outside through 365 days and 4 seasons, the only thing ‘obnoxious’ is a nimby like newsouthsloper who want to tell everyone else what not to do.

Not sure why you guys decided to knock me for living in South Slope, and expressing my honest thoughts on how obnoxious those things are. But I guess you are feeling trollish or whatever tonight…

For the OP – In case you think Im the only person that thinks this way, you can find plenty of others in these old threads, the May 9 2007 thread was started by me:

http://bstoner.wpengine.com/forum/archives/2008/02/fire_pit_in_bro.php#comments

http://bstoner.wpengine.com/forum/archives/2007/05/fire_bowlchimin.php#comments

People in the slope are such downers.