I’ve got another thread where I believe my question there has been sort of mutually answered. Sort of like a jam session. Maybe y’all can give me some ideas on this one as well somewhat in the same vein.
I’m fixing to get started on my “den” area of this fixer-upper house. The room was originally a porch which has been enclosed and has what we call the “BBQ pit.” Our plan is to turn the room into a sort of an English Pub style room complete with bar. Dart board optional :-). Hubby says (we bought the house from his parents) that his mom would actually cook ‘burgers out there when he was young although there was an Ashley wood stove in there when we moved into the house. There’s no way the darn thing can be removed, it shares the chimney with the fireplace on the other side of the wall, although it does have separate flues (two.) The only thing we can think to do with it, is to find some sort of Natural Gas indoor grill and install it, along with I guess some sort of a powered vent. Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any halfway reasonably priced such units for the grill. Three grand is a bit much. Other than that we could turn it into a REAL BBQ pit which is basically just a fireplace you cook in but I wouldn’t put it past some, ah, common sense challenged person down the line to try cooking in it with charcoal briquets which I believe is Not A Good Idea.Would this be doable you think? If it wasn’t for the heat put off by the fireplace when we have a fire (fairly minimal although you wouldn’t want to leave your hand on those bricks for too long) I’d turn it into some sort of paludarium grotto except that it would be a pain to service. In any case I’m planning on doing a nice mosaic mural, perhaps something Celtic to cover up the brick. Perhaps someone has some other ideas we could entertain about what to do with this “Pit?” Clickable THUMBNAIL
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Use side mount, 300#, 150% extension slides and mount your rain forest on them.
SamT
So much of the success of a company is not determined by degrees but temperature. gb93433 83537.46
To me, nothing would be better in a pub room than a nice big fireplace. Depending on where you are located you might be better off with a fireplace insert, or at least putting glass doors over the opening.
Another idea would be a wood-fired pizza oven. The last house I worked on was going to have one, but at the last minute the owners changed their minds. Not exactly traditional "pub-style" but fun none the less.
I wouldn't turn it into a real BBQ pit for the reasons you stated.
I think I'm about ready to make an "executive decision" :-). I've stressed over this for years. There's not a whole lot of space in front of the "fireplace" about 7-8' or so, but I think that's enough to make it cozy so to speak. This thing doesn't even have a damper; so I am indeed thinking of turning it into a gas log fireplace (will require a bit of brickwork for it to look right) and install one of the better, more realistic sets of vented gas logs. Personally I've never much cared for the way gas log "fires" look, but we've already got our real log fireplace on the other side of this thing in our living room. I suspect the den will not be used that much, and something that I can just turn on and off without having to keep an eye on it does appeal. For the record, it does seem to help just posting on here and sort of getting my thoughts out in the open. Seems like I'm more able to come to some sort of a decision. Now all I have to do is see if I can convince the husband figure to see it my way . . .
You know, I'm not crazy about the fake-log look either...but, the clients who decided to not use the pizza oven, decided to have us build a raised-heart fireplace, complete with woodwaiter to bring the firewood up from the basement. Once that was done they decided that what they REALLY wanted was to keep the real firebox, but install a propane burner and fake log kit.
The result is a VERY realistic looking fire and logs. There are no doors to obstruct the view. It doesn't throw off much heat, but if looks are important it's something to consider.
It does help just to talk things out, doesn't it?
"This thing doesn't even have a damper"
There's an easy fix for that. Put a cap on top of the flue that opens and closes. A chain goes from the cap, down inside the flue, and ends in the firebox, where you can pull on it to change the caps position.
Buic
Edited 1/11/2007 11:21 pm ET by BUIC
I think you should turn it into a fish tank.
I actually thought about that, I have several planted freshwater aquariums that I keep up as a hobby, but again, a tank of any size would be a royal pain to maintain it would be so difficult to get to.
My suggestion would be to make a decision first of what you want to see and how you want to use the room and then work out the mechanics and logistics. Then if it doesn't fit in the old budget make your compromises. I would think it nice to be able to do a little grilling in the old pub, also very fun and sociable. Try the search engines under indoor gas/wood grills and see what you could come up with.
Omah, I've been searching for several years using every search term, phrase, and combination thereof I can think of. I either get George Foreman grills, grills "approved for outdoor use only," lots of stuff for "outdoor kitchens" (which this obviously isn't,) electric grills (which we don't want, this will be well vented after all and although gas ain't charcoal, it's better than electric as far as grilling goes,) and other assorted stuff that's not what I'm looking for. I'm an old hand at internet searches (Boolean searches? Remember those?) but it's mostly this lack of information that's got me so discouraged.It may be a moot point however, as talking to the husband figure last night he's very definite that he wants to try putting in an indoor grill of some sort. Usually as far as DIY stuff goes he leaves it to me (he barely knows which end of a hammer to hold although he's a very good shadetree mechanic, especially on older vehicles,) but he's being pretty adamant about this. I'll just have to make sure he runs his plans by me as sometimes he gets pretty, um, creative in his solutions.
try aztec grills. I sent an attachment but i don't know if it worked or not so I'll type it long hand. http.//.aztecgrill.com./about2.html
Thank you for the link, but I think we've gotten away from thinking wood/charcoal because of the convenience/safety factor of gas, especially for inside. I'll pass it along to the husband figure however.
specifically I really don't know what you are after, its not important because I'm pretty bad at verbal descriptions anyway. I generally rely on scetches or plans. If you want some real help I bet if you could post some more revealing pictures of what you have now and how you envision it to look and function when its done, there will be more insight to your solutions. I'm still trying to persuade one of my clients to install a comercial grill in one of his vacation villas we are builing for him. Havn't found the perfect solution yet, but its the only way to go for recreational/social indoor cooking.
I can make it look good. That's not a problem. I'll come back in a year and post pix :-). I think the whole thing is the safety aspect of it. If I could be assured for instance that it would be safe (carbon monoxide is what worries me mostly) to just take a natural gas outdoor built-in and drop it into this ex-bbq pit I'd say there's no problem. I can find oodles of those, but . . . they're all in outdoor kitchens. Although one would think that gas is gas, yes? What's the difference between a NG grill and a NG cooktop? Is there any really? I have found ONE indoor grill that's marketed as such that's put out by Viking (CLICK HERE) but that little jewel runs around $1,800 which seems a bit pricey for what it is if you ask me. If it was 6" bigger, and about $800 less I'd seriously consider it :-). Viking is supposedly a premium brand though, and I guess you get what you pay for.
For most types of indoor grilling thats going to be substntial or commercial , you would also need a comercial hood to match. When you go to purchase such a unit they,ie. manuf. or vender will spec. you out as to the cfm's required. also a good carbon monoxide detector would be in order too.
i'm still trying to figure out whats wrong with charcoal?
Can be a bit of a mess, and takes some skill to really turn out a nice bit of meat. Been years since we've used charcoal. I'm afraid the simplicity of just turning on the gas and being good to go has rather spoiled us.
i'm sorry i didn't know you had to be common sense challenged to cook with charcoal.
If you use charchol indoors your carbon monoxide sensors will go off because charcol gives off carbon monoxide a deadly poisonous gas.
she said it had a working flue!
If she's worried then put a cm detector in the room and if it goes off then put a fan in the flue or a seperate exhaust fan.
Yep. That's what we've decided to do. Still going with gas though to keep the mess out of the house. Also, as my husband pointed out, we will be likely to use a gas grill a lot whereas we have the feeling that a charcoal/wood grill would be used seldom. It's been years since we've used a charcoal grill, but if we suddenly have the desire for charcoal grilled steaks or whatnot, we'll purchase a smaller outdoor grill or possibly even a smoker.I was looking at those flues, they're a good size. I'd estimate about 6x8 (2 of 'em) or thereabouts. Didn't have my tape on me at the time for an exact measurement, but I've got a pretty good eye for estimating size. So that should move a lot of air out. I'll have to put some sort of a vent or something in though to replace exhausted air, don't want to have to depend on opening a window or cracking a door.
Don't upload the URL it is just worthless.And don't hand type in it either.Just copy and paste it. But make sure that there is a space in fron and after it or just put it on a separate line.http://www.aztecgrill.com/about2.html.
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A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.