Most burn barrels are made of steel 55-gallon drums, and rust eventually will get to them. If all you burn is wood and paper products, these ashes can be used to enrich garden soil or even to make soap if you are truly old-school.ĭad and I have burned truckloads of stuff in the old burn barrel, and it doesn’t show any signs of wearing out. Don’t start a fire outside of the drum.Īshes do build up inside and must be removed after they fully cool, but it’s amazing how much you can burn in a barrel before the ashes get too high. That said, you do want to keep dry leaves and other flammables away from your barrel so hot embers, including those which may dribble out of the vent holes. The grate helps contain that so your fire doesn’t spread.Īnd that’s another thing I like about a burn barrel: it helps keep the fire contained so it’s less likely that the fire will get away from you, especially if you leave it unattended. When the fire is burning strongly, it’s drawing air through the vent holes and the barrel is acting like a chimney of sorts this means the rising heat can carry lightweight burning materials (leaves, paper, etc) up and out of the barrel. Something that can help (and which is required in some areas) is a metal grate that you can cover the barrel with during the burn, to help contain hot embers. Our cover is just a hunk of old corrugated aluminum roofing which Dad bent and tossed on his barrel decades ago it’s still working fine. This keeps rain out, which means your drum will be dry when it’s time to burn something and also helps prevent rusting. Yep - it’s a good idea to keep the barrel covered when it’s not hot. Notice the glow on the ground from the vent hole on the far side of the barrel.
The air holes should be low on the barrel anyhow, and this will let out rain water in the event that you forget to cover the top. This will accelerate rust-through and doesn’t help much for drainage when you have a bed of ashes in the barrel. Some folks put holes in the bottom of the barrel, but I do not and I don’t recommend it. Keep them clear while you burn you want air flowing in through those holes during the burn. You want at least one (preferably two or three) good-size air holes near the bottom of the barrel. Some air space is helpful below it, and this helps prevent the bottom from rusting out of steel barrels. You don’t want your burn barrel to sit right on the ground. I usually don’t burn leaves instead I spread them on our dirt road to help prevent dust and erosion. This can be a problem without a barrel, too. I can’t feed mine a lot of leaves without mixing in sticks to keep a hot bed of coals in the drum and prevent the leaves from building up and smoldering. Like everything else, burn barrels have limitations.
Once you cut it and toss it in the barrel, you’re done with it. This is a little more work, but it beats walking around a fire pit feeding in the ends of burnt-off limbs. Unlike when you burn on the ground, there’s a bit more need to trim limbs into smaller hunks. The natural movement of air through one or more holes low in the side of the barrel also helps things to burn more quickly. The barrel helps contain the material AND the fire, which helps concentrate the heat and accelerate the burn. Burning is one of the best ways to do that, but burning on the ground is not nearly as efficient as using a barrel. I have numerous trees on my small country property, and between thunderstorms, bark beetles, gravity, and hurricanes that means I have a lot of burnable stuff to dispose of.
Whether you’re burning trash or yard debris, a barrel can make your life a lot easier, and in some areas it’s the only way to burn legally. For much of the time, we just burned on the ground, but later on he got a nice barrel made of stainless steel, which lasted him for years and which I’m still using today. I helped Dad burn loads of limbs and leaves, and even wrapping paper after we opened our gifts on Christmas day. I grew up in the country, and part of that meant we had trees, palmettos, and such, all of which produced stuff that needed to be burned.
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