Building the Fire Pit at Straw Hollow

Don't have the time, energy or inclination to construct a straw bale house? Here's a great weekend project to get you started building with bales! If you're thinking that building bales of straw into a campfire is a bit risky, remember that strawbales are very difficult to ignite, and when covered with three layers of stucco are almost totally fireproof.

Here's our firepit ready to start construction. As our firepit is surrounded by grass, we decided for fire safety reasons to pour a concrete pad as the firepit base. If your firepit is surrounded by dirt or gravel, you might decide to skip this step.

Within the inner concrete form, we arranged rocks to surround the fire and create that fire-pit "look". Do your best to make your circle level, and remember to create drainage for the "inner" circle, or your firepit will become a miniature swimming pool.

Then add concrete!

We decided to use eight bales, signifying the points of the compass. The bales should be laid on raised (2") concrete or pressure treated lumber pads to keep the bales above any standing water. We didn't fasten our bales to the ground, but you might decide to "impale" the bales on pre-set reinforcing bar.

Now it's time to apply the cement stucco. Using a ratio of about 1 part cement, 1 part lime and 5 to 8 parts sand, apply the scratch coat, brown coat and colour coat on three consecutive days. Applying the stucco by hand tends to be easier than using a trowel and allows you to accent the natural contours of the straw bale.

That's all there is to it! Optional extras might include covering the top of the bale with tar paper before adding stucco or painting the top of the finished product with a waterproof membrane. We're quite confident that our fire-pit will stand the test of time without those measures, but we'll cover the pit during the winter just to be safe.