Fire Pits and Forest Schools

The forest school programme is now firmly entrenched and practised in many schools in the UK – both in urban and town/city settings and allows participating children to benefit from real-life outdoor experiences in a woodland or natural environment.

And we have found from our merry travels visiting schools up and down the country that there is a set pattern to the kind of products they are looking for to help with this initiative.

So this blog serves as a guide to what we can offer in this respect as the Hideout House Company.

Open Air Fire Pits

Preparing and lighting camp fires is an essential part of the overall forest schools programme. Some schools – especially those in urban settings – unfortunately do not have the benefit of a wooded or forest environment actually on their school grounds so they usually opt for hiving off a part of their playing fields for this purpose.

In this respect, we are able to build a fire pit seating area which consists of woodland type rustic style benching, a fire pit and a stone gravel floor encased in a solid timber edging surround. Or if the area is bigger, we can use bark instead of gravel.

The fire pit areas can be built according to the amount of children using them, space and of course budget.

Fire Pit Shelters

Schools  – as well as wanting a fire pit – are also wanting to provide for some kind of shelter from the elements when the weather is not so nice. So we have combined the two with our fire pit shelter.

This comes in two variants. The first is an open sided octagonal gazebo whereby we have a ventilation hole in the roof to allow for the fire smoke to easily exhaust out of. These fire pit gazebos also come with internal benching (we have two sizes – 4m which caters for a class of 22 children or a bigger version at 5m which is designed for a class of 30) and half panel walls. These half panel walls allow for extra protection but they are also structural and bind the building together to stop it from racking.

We also can apply two coats of a fire retardant varnish to the underside of the roof.

Another option in this range is our 4m x 4m cooking shelter which has internal benching to three sides, the option of roll-down canvas panels to the sides and a special fire pit cum cooking facility in the middle which has a central flue going through the roof.

Or if you didn’t want to have an actual fire pit in the middle, we can always just supply one of our outdoor shelters with a marine grade PU coated canvas roof. These are available in three sizes and a choice of colours for the canvas roof – plus an additional optional extra is to have full length roll-down canvas panels to the sides.

 

Fire Pit Cabins

These are proving to be extremely popular as they also have quite a distinct and Hobbit like style to them. Perfect therefore for a wooded setting. Like the afore-mentioned cooking shelter, these cabins have a central fire pit and cooking facility with exhaust flue.

They are available in four different sizes and as they are fully enclosed, they allow for all year round use. And of course in the winter, you simply have to light the fire to keep cosy and warm inside. Optional extras allow for insulation, internal benching and tables, sun pipe, timber sub-frame base and roof windows to allow in more natural light.

They are built using premium materials including Arctic pine and a felt shingle tile roof with a pine ceiling under draw (the felt shingles are available in three different colours).

And they are usually installed on site within a couple of days so minimal inconvenience to the school.

And what’s more, the children absolutely love them and I have heard them being described over the years as many things – the Hansel and Gretel House, Hobbit House, Hideout Den etc