Any advice on buying a chiminea?

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Has anyone got any advice on buying a chiminea? Any good ones, right size to buy or what to burn cheaply - anything really.

Have always fancied one and out of the blue DH has decided one would be a nice idea for occasional use.

I love our chimnea, we toast marshmallows on it!

We just get packs of kindling and firewood logs from B&Q which doesn't work out expensive at all for occasional use - we use about 4-5 logs for an evening session.

We use it as an alternative to a shredder too - we screw up bank statements, utility bills etc into balls and use as kindling!

There's a lovely poem about firewood which talks about the different smells you get from different wood. allpoetry.com/The-Firewood-Poem.

I wouldn't go for one of those pottery ones with the flimsy stands as they don't look very robust! Ours is cast iron along these lines and is still going strong after 6 years of being left out in all weathers, moved around the garden and moved by removal men - it's actually this one - www.castironchimineas.co.uk/The%20vienna%20chiminea.htm

Oh that description says cast iron radiates more heat than clay - it does throw out a good amount of heat and keeps the two of us very toasty.

We have one made of an old gas cylinder. Bought it off gumtree

We have the same as hero but ours has not appreciated being out in all weathers and got totally rusty! I just had to do a hammerite spray job on it. So I would recommend a cover

Thanks for your replies. We are going to get our act together this weekend and buy/order one! We are actually planning on storing ours in the shed in winter, so hopefully this will reduce winter damage.

if clay then add a good layer of sand to the bottom to try and stop it cracking

metal repaint with stove paint when out of use at end of the year

had both both lasted a year or two before failing, either people putting too much fuel on and the heat killing it, getting knocked and cracking so on and so on.

now just have a small fire pit, its stone, its not going to fail any time soon and if too much fuel goes on you just have to get more sooner to replenish the wood pile

as long as your not breathing in the smoke pallet wood works and you see plenty of people scavenging the free bits pile at ikea for the real wood bits

In bristol we have a company/charity call the wood project where the burning offcuts are cheap