Daft question alert - are chimeneas just for heating or can you cook on them too?

[KirstyJC]

We want to replace our BBQ and I have been looking on various websites and seen several clay chimeneas.

They look really nice and would be lovely to have in the evenings when it cools down but I can't work out if they are also for cooking on? Can you get shelves to put in there too, or are they just for heating? And do you use charcoal or wood?

We can't afford both, and don't have space for both either, so if they don't cook as well then we would need to just go for the BBQ.

Thanks

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

It's a long time since we bought ours, but I dimly remember that there were some you could cook on. I think they were bigger than ours and had a metal grille inside. Ours, though, is just for heating and burning confidential papers.

[PigletJohn]

I cook on mine, it has a swing-out grill that you can put stuff on through the doorway

however, it is iron, not clay. I have known clay things crack from the heat.

I also put burnable garden waste in mine, including small branches or fenceposts down the chimney, and prunings/twigs.

[PigletJohn]

mine

it has an iron door

[PigletJohn]

in fact mine is not quite like that as it has an iron door and the swing-out cooking grill.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

I would burn garden waste in mine - I have done in the past - but failed to get it properly alight today, hence burning only the personal papers I was using as firelighters!

[KirstyJC]

Ooh that looks nice PigletJohn. Interesting about the clay cracking, I wouldn't have thought of that and the clay does look nice, but iron would be better if it's more hardwearing. Do the metal feet/stand get hot? We would possibly be putting it on the decking if we use it as a heater, as that's where the table/chairs are. Don't want it to mark the wood!

DH has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works by insisting he only wants a gas BBQ and not a chimenea......still, that's the beauty of internet shopping, right?

[PigletJohn]

the metal feet don't get very hot, but the ground under the belly does. I used to put paving slabs under mine but I broke them, now I use a big builders tray of water. It would scorch grass or wooden decking. Embers sometimes fall out too. Gravel should be OK.

I formerly had a home made thing with bricks and a big Victorian chimneypot, but the pot cracked badly from the heat when I had scrap wood flaming under it.