Anyone put a granite counter top on a fire pit?

MJK · Apr 7, 2013

Customer is looking to put a Granite counter top on the fire pit. Inside diameter of the fire pit is 30inch, outside is 48 inch. Seems like they are leaning towards a 52inch diameter piece of granite.

After shopping around most prices I have are in the $1,800 - $2,000 range for the granite cut to size. For some reason this seems low to me.

Anyone use granite like this before?

shawnlc · Apr 7, 2013

MJK said:
Customer is looking to put a Granite counter top on the fire pit. Inside diameter of the fire pit is 30inch, outside is 48 inch. Seems like they are leaning towards a 52inch diameter piece of granite.

After shopping around most prices I have are in the $1,800 - $2,000 range for the granite cut to size. For some reason this seems low to me.

Anyone use granite like this before?

I quick search I could find 48" for $2300 (doesn't include shipping).

shawnlc · Apr 7, 2013

This right here is $1600 with free shipping. It's 54". See attachment.

MJK · Apr 7, 2013

That's perfect, do you have a link?

Murphy's Law · Apr 8, 2013

I would recommend calling a local granite counter fabricator. I'm willing to bet they can do it for A LOT less than $1,600 if you are not set on a particular color. They hold onto a ton of remnants that they can rarely get rid of. This means that their product cost is essentially zero and it's all labor for them. That's your bargaining chip.

White Gardens · Apr 8, 2013

Here's a question,

Would the granite hold up to heat without cracking?

........

White Gardens · Apr 8, 2013

Just did some research.

Looks like solid granite pieces used for the hearth of a fireplace can crack from the heat.

Personally, I wouldn't use a solid piece of anything for the top of a fire pit.

This is why when we do custom ones, we use a hard flagstone, broken up in a mosaic.

This is one we did 4 years ago. The owners have had some raging fires in it and none of the pieces have cracked. And surprisingly, the mortar has still held up great too.

................

Birchwood · Apr 8, 2013

White Gardens said:
Just did some research.

Looks like solid granite pieces used for the hearth of a fireplace can crack from the heat.

Personally, I wouldn't use a solid piece of anything for the top of a fire pit.

This is why when we do custom ones, we use a hard flagstone, broken up in a mosaic.

This is one we did 4 years ago. The owners have had some raging fires in it and none of the pieces have cracked. And surprisingly, the mortar has still held up great too.

................

I think it would look alot better if you had some larger pieces on there with a 2" overhang on both sides.

alexschultz1 · Apr 15, 2013

what stone did you use?

White Gardens · Apr 16, 2013

Birchwood said:
I think it would look alot better if you had some larger pieces on there with a 2" overhang on both sides.

When breaking the flagstone to make it small enough to put on top, it basically started shattering on me. I wanted to get some larger pieces, but this is the way it turned out.

Only other thing I could of done was to score to stone first on the backside before breaking it to achieve the larger pieces.

alexschultz1 said:
what stone did you use?

It's been so long, I can't remember the actual product. Just an extremely hard flagstone, I want to say bluestone, but I don't think that's right.

The outer ring was Iowa block, which is a fairly regular natural stone that comes in 3 foot lengths. I ended up cutting each block to get 6 pieces out of it. Then mitered each piece so it would fit the ring. The inside is firebrick.

.....

Anyone put a granite counter top on a fire pit?

MJK

shawnlc

shawnlc

MJK

Murphy's Law

White Gardens

White Gardens

Birchwood

alexschultz1

White Gardens

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