You can purchase a steel stock tank ring online or from a tractor supply store. They may also be available at your local gardening or building supply store. Make sure that the steel stock ring is hollow. Some of the planter variations have solid bottoms, but those won’t work for this. A ring that’s roughly 3 feet (0. 91 m) wide and 1 ft (0. 30 m) high would work as an excellent fire pit.
Wear protective eyewear. Drilling into the tank ring may send mental shavings flying. The holes will sit at the top of the fire pit. Just keep that in mind as you keep going. So long as the holes are in a symmetrical circle at the top of the tank ring, their size and distance between one another doesn’t matter.
Keep your eyewear on for this. A stray metal shaving may fly off while you’re sanding. This isn’t technically mandatory; it just makes the tank ring safe to touch and move around. If you never plan on moving the tank, feel free to skip this.
You can find heat-resistant spray paint at most home improvement stores or online. It may take multiple coats to get an opaque coat. Wait at least 1 hour between coats. Black and brown will both look good, but fancier, brighter colors are likely to get dirty very quickly.
Do not set your fire pit on pea gravel or river rocks. These materials can retain moisture and explode when they heat up. If you have to install pavers, check with your utility companies before you dig anything out to avoid hitting a gas or water line.
You can use bricks instead of pavers if you’d like. The most popular stones for this are tapered a bit along the sides so that you can stack them in a tighter circle.
Alternatively, you remove a single paver and then space all of the other stones out evenly to leave a 1–2 in (2. 5–5. 1 cm) gap between every single paver. [8] X Research source
The openings at the bottom allow cold air in. That cold air travels up and gets heated quickly from the fire. The holes in the ring will draw air from the fire into the opening as the cold air pulls it down, thus removing the smoke.
This will work just as well as larger pavers, so choose whichever look you prefer.
Pea gravel and river stone are absolute no-gos. They retain too much moisture and can explode if you start a fire when it’s wet. You can now use your fire pit and enjoy the smokeless flames!
If you are cooking over the fire hole, the width of the hole must be smaller than your pot or skillet. Place the hole under a tree canopy to disperse the smoke even better. The Dakota fire hole will minimize smoke, but it won’t be 100% smokeless. This will not work if there is no wind or it rained recently and the soil is wet.
If you don’t have access to rocks, you can lay thick branches around the rim of the hole if you prefer.
This second hole will feed air into the bottom of the first hole you’ve dug. That will feed the fire with oxygen and cold air, which should burn the fire while dissipating much of the smoke.
