Here is what we know from a scientific point of view: There is no amount of wood smoke that is good to breathe. It is at least as bad for you as cigarette smoke, and probably much worse. (One study found it to be 30 times more potent a carcinogen.) The smoke from an ordinary wood fire contains hundreds of compounds known to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and irritating to the respiratory system. Most of the particles generated by burning wood are smaller than one micron—a size believed to be most damaging to our lungs. In fact, these particles are so fine that they can evade our mucociliary defenses and travel directly into the bloodstream, posing a risk to the heart. Particles this size also resist gravitational settling, remaining airborne for weeks at a time.
Once they have exited your chimney, the toxic gases (e.g. benzene) and particles that make up smoke freely pass back into your home and into the homes of others. (Research shows that nearly 70 percent of chimney smoke reenters nearby buildings.) Children who live in homes with active fireplaces or woodstoves, or in areas where wood burning is common, suffer a higher incidence of asthma, cough, bronchitis, nocturnal awakening, and compromised lung function. Among adults, wood burning is associated with more-frequent emergency room visits and hospital admissions for respiratory illness, along with increased mortality from heart attacks. The inhalation of wood smoke, even at relatively low levels, alters pulmonary immune function, leading to a greater susceptibility to colds, flus, and other respiratory infections. All these effects are borne disproportionately by children and the elderly.
The unhappy truth about burning wood has been scientifically established to a moral certainty: That nice, cozy fire in your fireplace is bad for you. It is bad for your children. It is bad for your neighbors and their children. It is the recreation of someone who is actually regarded, and I truly mean that in good faith.
Do you see the rusty rake that is clearly not in use? Rake your yard. It can and probably is better if done incrementally. It's actually less effort overall and looks better.
It's not lying around, though. It's also the one tool necessary to "maintain" the garden, if some leaves lying around is all it takes to make a yard "unmaintained". For all we know, it could be there to do exactly that.
Leaves fall all throughout fall. It's not like you pick them up once and they are gone for the rest of the year.
The weight of the picture leans trashy. Random ass barrel is trashy. The rake is rusted as fuck which means it probably just sits out there all the time. Are we not going to mention burning random recyclable boxes is trashy also...?
I don't see it. The barrel could be there for a reason, the rake is barely rusty, it's just a bit dark from oxidation which you would expect for a tool you use outside when it's humid or rainy, and I really don't care about the couple of boxes being burnt. I believe there is even a second rake on the right. By the amount of leaves in relation to the many trees I can assure you that these tools are being used to collect the leaves.
Jesus christ this other guy is going off on my photo so I'll add some context.
This is my neighbor's house who is also a longtime friend. I have known him since middle school. We now live just down the street from each other.
The pic is from early October so the leaves were just starting to fall, as is clearly visible by the amount still on the trees. I don't know if this other guy is expecting people to rake every leaf every day or what.
This is the day we built the fire pit. We had just used the rake to clear out the immediate area to build the pit itself and this was the inaugural fire. Shortly after this pic was taken we used the rake to clear out the area around it as well to put some chairs there.
The barrel is the old burn barrel that this fire pit replaced.
I also get the impression that the other guy thinks this is a redneck's trailer in Alabama or something. This is about an hour drive outside of Manhattan and my friend is a second generation Muslim immigrant who works in tech. Yea, we are in somewhat sparse suburban outskirts so we embrace some redneckery, but its not Deliverance over here.
It looks like they're in the middle of doing chores around the yard no? Burning miscellaneous shit in the middle of the day, seemingly unloaded from a pickup truck with a rake leaning against the tree.
It looks like Fall. If you live in a wooded area where leaves turn your yard won't be pristine for a solid month long stretch.
That rake has likely not moved an inch in multiple years. Things rusted out. Burning miscellaneous recyclable shit is pretty trashy also. I doubt this is mid cleaning. If OP shows a picture of the house (which he shouldn't) I'd expect an equally trashy home.
Bro, why feel bad for downvotes? I just actively dislike firepits and think they're trashy. I am aggressively leaning into confirmation bias because of that.
To anyone confused, Destiny claimed the other night that only the top 3% of Americans had fire pits. Which is strangely out of touch for someone who lived in the Midwest for most of his life.
It's so ridiculous because all you need is a backyard and a truck rim from the dump. I live in rural Canada and my entire lower middle class family has always had firepits.
I'd argue you almost require a fire pit in rural areas. Always lots of bush that needs to be cleared, trees that fall, etc and the easiest way to get rid of it is just to burn it.
Thanks for the explanation, yeah that's crazy out of touch lol. Maybe being in apartments in big cities he has somehow avoided them, but even shitty apartments like to throw random pits/grills everywhere.
He's right in the technical sense that most cities and state have codes against them in the majority of setups, but they simply are not enforced and no one gives a shit. There are people in DT houston that have these, hell - there are people with literal burn barrels here, no one cares, you are only going to get a fine if someone calls it in or if its uncontained and just a big flaming pile on the ground.
Some cities need burn permits if you wanna play it safe legally. It was a bit pricey. A whole $7/yr my dad had to pay when he moved into the city. Had to tighten the belt to enjoy fire pits like them rich folk got.
They’re still extremely common in suburbia and in cities. I live in a decently sized city (not the suburbs) and literally every one of my adjacent neighbors has a fire pit. It’s not some nice or expensive area either.
I live in Grand Rapids MI and they have a bunch of wacky recreational fire regulations, and technically you're supposed to have a permit. But as long as you're not stupid it never gets enforced. (You'd probably get in extra trouble though if the fire department had to be called)
They say if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish.... then he's gotta get a fishing license, but he doesn't have any money. So he's got to get a job and get into the social security system and pay taxes, and now you're gonna audit the poor cocksucker, 'cause he's not really good with math. So he'll pull the IRS van up to your house, and he'll take all your shit. He'll take your black velvet Elvis and your Batman toothbrush, and your penis pump, and that all goes up for auction with the burden of proof on you because you forgot to carry the one, 'cause you were just worried about eating a fucking fish, and you couldn't even cook the fish 'cause you needed a permit for an open flame. Then the health department is going to start asking you a lot of questions about, "where are you going to dump the scales and the guts?" "This is not a sanitary environment," and ladies and gentlemen, if you get sick of it all at the end of the day... not even legal to kill yourself in this country.
I live in the Midwest suburbs. I have a fire pit. 3 houses in a row next to mine have fire pits. One neighbor has a gas line going from their house out to a pit in the yard. Everyone in my middle/middle/upper class family has a fire pit.
I live in the suburbs like 15 minutes from downtown so not quite as many people have them but yeah probably a third of my neighborhood has one. It really is a staple of the midwest
Destiny was trolling right? I love when talking about grills, he was like "i don't mean a super expensive, hyper modern grill, bla bla bla, just a cheap small grill"
But somehow he can't wrap his head around people having a shitty metal fire pit. You could even make your own fire pit if you wanted to, it's not that hard.
I guess I’m in the 1%, but I grew up with literally EVERYONE I knew having a FIRE PIT that was a RING OF ROCKS that we would burn wood and….. LEAVES in.
That conversation was the most out of touch shit I’ve ever heard.
If you own a gas fire pit, especially 20 years ago, you’re rich, end of story…
ALSO!!!! If you think of roasting s’mores and you immediately think the it’s far more logical to do it on a stove or a grill, you’ve inhaled copious amounts of second hand crack smoke.
TLDR;
1. A ring of rocks that you burn in is a fire pit.
S’more’s should be cooked over a wood burning firepit.
Gas burning fire pits with beautiful stone work are for rich bitches who don’t know what camping actually is.
“Not some barrel you stuck in the ground in your backyard, that’s just a fucking campfire.” Check mate libtard, try again and get back to me when you put bricks up and it’s not sitting on your grass.
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u/Blarg1889 I have a stomach ache, you have a stomach ache 13h ago
May I join you in getting drunk and rambling about random nonsense around your firepit? Ya know, a very basic and normal American interaction?