List Price: $1,499.00
Sale Price: $1,100.00
Today's Bonus: 27% Off
The pluses: The fire pit is beautiful, well made and sturdy. It comes fully assembled and packed in over one hundred pounds of protective shipping material. Its shipping weight was 410 lbs. but free to Amazon Prime members. The delivery was not by UPS, but a special carrier whose delivery truck unloaded the crate with a forklift. There could not be any careless employees throwing THIS package around and damaging it. It came in a sturdy, new wooden crate that was not nailed together. It was held firmly in place with strong metal clamps that were easily removed with a crowbar. The science of hot air ballons speaks well for this fire pit's low profile. Because hot air goes up, the low fire pit table spreads more heat to people sitting around it--before the heated air can escape above them.
The minuses: A propane tank cannot be put inside this fire pit. I am 67 years old and do not have a home shop or handyman experience. I will have to look around for matching enclosed bamboo end tables with a door large enough to put a propane tank inside. I will then have to hire someone to cut out part of the backside of one of those tables to put in a vent-grille---per manufacturer's safety warnings. This is doable but an inconvenient cost--unless you want to have an ugly butane tank sitting in the open air next to the fire pit table. The table is one piece and cannot be disassembled. To hook up the equipment inside the fire pit table, it must be stood up on its side--held in place by two people while a third person installs the hardware. Obviously you don't want to put the tile in direct contact with a concrete floor with the 300 lbs. of weight pressing down. I will put several blankets on the floor to cushion it before tipping it on its side for installation.
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The firepit took a little while to arrive (sorry...Amazon Prime did not help), and an excellent price thru Amazon. This thing came by a real freight truck, as this sucker is palletized and boxed. So huge, I couldn't even get the pallet through our gate. You need tools to break this baby out and my wife and I had to move it vertically on a furniture dolly to get it in the backyard. Not a lightweight piece, but not unmanageable once in place. I can easily tilt it up on one edge by myself. But I won't move it by myself. Packaged extremely well.I noticed that that Cal-Flame doesn't tell you much about this firepit on their site or on Amazon, so I'll try to fill-in the blanks:
It seems well built steel tube frame with wonderboard, then with stucco-type finish and tile on top. This thing might last a while.
Cal-Flame includes extra finishing stuff (stucco, tile, grout, etc..) just in case you have an incident. A brilliant idea if you have an issue down the road and can't find matching tile.
The instructions suck. Well, there isn't much to know hook up gas and light it. However, there is an air-bleed adjustment that they gloss over and it seems kind of important to me for an authentic flame I have no idea where to set it, and it's not like you can mess with it while the fire is running, as you have to get under the firepit to adjust it. I don't think its even meant to adjust, but since the crappy manual shows a different pipe than was on my firepit, who knows. I played with it a few times for a yellowish flame (as opposed to a natural gas "blue" flame), and it looks okay.
It comes ready to go for propane, and includes a natural gas conversion orifice. (well, its supposed to...mine didn't come with it like it was supposed to, and since the instructions suck and were vague, it meant a call to Cal-Flame to figure out what I had and what I needed. Try explaining the size of a small unlabeled orifice to the tech guy who thinks you should have two very similar unlabeled (??) orifices with similar sized holes. Regardless, we figured it out and they sent me the missing natural gas one immediately.)
The control valve is a mystery, as it comes with a note saying not to use it in a certain position weird. I'm not sure where to put it to light it, so it takes me a few (10-20?) seconds to light it. I haven't mastered it yet, and since the manual sucks, I'm not sure of the exact problem. I'm getting better at it. Seems like it should be much easier, but maybe I am bleeding my natural gas line of air since I have a shut-off valve upstream to the firepit. Anyway, it eventually lights with the push of a button.
You will need a natural gas pipe to hook it up to your natural gas source. Despite the amount of BTU's Cal-Flame claims the firepit puts out versus the labels on the natural gas pipes sold at Home Depot, I believed it needed the "bigger" (medium) size, but since the fitting on my house was the medium size and the fire pit was the smaller size (I cannot remember exactly which size), I was trying to get a larger pipe all the way to the firepit for the best gas volume. I couldn't find the right adapters to make that work. Best bet is to hit the Home Depot or Lowes and buy a bunch of stuff, so you don't have to go twice getting the right adapters, flares, etc. Its easy, but I spent 20 minutes looking at the hoses at the store, thinking I needed the bigger one (based on BTU's) when I actually needed the smallest one, as the hoses inside the fire pit are quite small also. Some clarification in the manual regarding hose size and gas volume issues (if any) would be nice.
It comes with the hose for the propane tank (which I have not used.)
It comes with lava rocks and four fake "logs" nice. I'm thinking of going to glass stones in the firepit!
Contrary to what I thought, this thing does not make much heat for warmth. Its pretty much for ambiance only. After an hour of running. I can pick up the (cold side) of one of the "logs" without burning my hand. Sure, the "logs" get warm and lava rocks get warm, but unless your feet are up on the tile table, you are not going to feel the heat. I ended up buying two heat lamps to sit under for warmth. The ambiance and calming effect of the fire ARE nice though. I bet I could make more heat by burning the crappy manual. But I digress.
It does not come with a cover. I found a generic square one on the internet (not that easy due to the size), but it works great to keep the rain out.
Yes, you can make smores with this thing. Fun!
The looks on this thing do not disappoint as it looks beautiful.
Strong and sturdy. I haven't tried it, but I bet it's sturdy enough to stand on. Dance on? Not sure...
All in all, I don't regret the purchase. It looks great and works as designed (I think). I am disappointed with the heat output, as I thought it would be closer to a campfire type heat. Not so. However, we've already used it 3-4 times in the past few weeks (since it can't be too cold outside, otherwise you'll freeze). Great value on Amazon. 4/5 stars.
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