Outdoor fireplace kits have become ever more popular in recent years among people who want to install an outdoor fireplace in their home. While many people like to have a large permanently installed fireplace in their garden or on their patio, both the costs and effort required to build a custom outdoor fireplace will likely be prohibitively high for most.
The alternative to such an individual building project is to buy one of the many outdoor fireplace kits for sale available on the market. The variety of models offered by most manufacturers has increased significantly in recent years. Most of these fireplaces can be customized in their outside appearance either by painting the outside of the construction or by adding a stone or brick layer on top after assembly. Most outdoor fireplace kits are designed to be built as freestanding constructions, but can still be integrated into, for example, an existing wall with slight modifications.
Available Outdoor Fireplace Kit Options
Most fireplace kits can be delivered for use with either wood and charcoal or with a gas burner. Both natural gas and propane can be used as fuels with outdoor gas fireplace kits, supplied either from the fixed installed line or from a gas bottle which regularly needs to be exchanged. The typical size of an outdoor fireplace kit will be somewhere between 30 and 48 inches, usually spaced in 4 inch intervals.
The main attraction of a prefab outdoor fireplace kit compared to a custom built hearth is the ease of assembly. While building an outdoor fireplace from the ground up will require both expensive tools and considerable expertise, raising up an outdoor fireplace kit is an easy do-it-yourself project that could be completed by one or two persons in a single day. Most kits do not require mortar, glue or other kinds of fasteners for assembly.
The Fireplace Kit Assembly Process
The actual assembly of an outdoor fireplace kit proceeds as follows: at first, a level surface needs to be created upon which the construction will be built. Most assembly kits contain anything between 10 to 30 prefabricated stone or concrete parts which are already shaped in such a way as to fit tightly together. Construction starts with the lowest part of the fireplace, where the four bottom walls are connected in such a way as to form a basis for the firebox itself. The next levels of the fireplace including either the walls of the firebox or, in the case of see-through fireplaces, the front, back and side screens of the firebox are then stacked upon each other in the same way. On top, the chimney construction is again built from stone or concrete plates which will then be secured to the rest of the construction in such a way that the whole fireplace now forms a tight fitting construction.
Afterwards, the fireplace is already finished from a technical point of view and could be used without further building efforts. However, most installations will be finished with an additional decorated layer on top of the stone construction which will give the fireplace its final outside appearance. The materials needed for this are usually not included in the outdoor fireplace kit but need to be purchased separately. Most manufacturers offer a large variety of materials for this purpose specifically.
Due to the standardized manufacturing and the do-it-yourself installation, outdoor fireplace kits are significantly cheaper than individually designed fireplaces, saving the owner large sums of money which can then be spent for other purposes on and around the fireplace, enhancing the overall appeal of the ensemble. This possibility is certainly one of the major reasons why people choose to buy an outdoor fireplace kit instead of building a hearth from the ground up.
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