What is a Smokeless Fire Pit? And Why Should You Care?

Fire pits are practically a national past time in the USA. Every year, whether it’s during the cool fall season or a starry summer night, people gather around the fire pit to spend time together and enjoy the great outdoors.

Campfires and bonfires provide us with a sense of community. They’re a great way to gather friends and family together.

But what is the number one complaint when it comes to fire pits?

The smoke!

When you sit around a fire long enough, you always seem to end up with smoke billowing right into your face.

And the smell gets into your clothes, hair, and sometimes even your skin.

What causes smoke

Smoke is caused by incomplete combustion. In a traditional campfire, or fire pit, wood is burned up, but it isn’t burned down all the way.

Everything that isn’t fully burned gets released, including harmful creosote (that’s the black stuff that floats in the smoke). Smoke is basically an aerosolized mixture of particles, and liquids that were not burned up in the fire.

Essentially, the cause of smoke boils down to a lack of oxygen in the fire.

The lack of oxygen chokes out the fire just a little, allowing for the fuel (firewood) to release some particulates and liquids out into the atmosphere in the form of smoke and creosote.

Is smokeless really better?

The CDC defines creosote as:

 “a mixture of hundreds of chemicals. Creosote is a thick and oily liquid. Creosote can be released into soil and water and can then move through the soil to groundwater. After creosote gets into groundwater, it may take many years to break down.”

They go on to say that creosote deposits can even build up in plants and animals like snails, shellfish, and oysters.

So not only do creosotes look and smell bad, but they’re even bad for the environment!

A smokeless fire pit can burn off most of this harmful creosote by giving the fire a much more complete combustion.

The Hot Ash Fire Pit uses something called “gasification” to provide extra oxygen that helps the fire burn its fuel more completely.

Gasification works by superheating the air around the fire and releasing it to reignite any smoke particulates before they leave the pit itself.

Most gasifying fire pits use a double-walled design to achieve this. Check out the diagram below to get a better idea of what I’m talking about:

Like we talked about earlier, incomplete combustion is the result of a lack of oxygen in and around the fire.

Gasification provides that extra oxygen, which results in a much more complete combustion. This means less accumulation of creosote and harmful particulates in the atmosphere. 

Smokeless fires are better for the environment, and better for people than a typical campfire.

What makes Hot Ash Fire Pits different?

Now, if you’ve done any research on smokeless fire pits, you’ve probably seen the options on the market. And you’re probably wondering why you should even consider a Hot Ash Fire Pit.

Number one, we make every fire pit in the USA using high-quality, 304 grade stainless steel (that’s food-grade if you were wondering). We even offer a lifetime guarantee against any manufacturing defects to back it up.

We’ve also designed our fire pits to be modular. That means you can use them as the base for our portable wood-fired pizza oven and our grill top!

To sum it up, our fire pits are made with the highest quality. Plus, you can use them for all of our accessories to make your backyard into the coolest outdoor kitchen around.