What’s going on guys? It’s Hai.
It’s still very rainy, wet, and cold here in Washington but I’m currently making plans for a fire pit area on the property. After some research, I’ve decided on the East Oak Pan Stove Fire Pit. This particular one is the Chisel Steel 29” version but there is also a 17” and 21” version. All three sizes are also available in a black finish.
If you don’t hang out outside a lot, this may not be what you’d think a fire pit would look like. You’re probably more familiar with the concrete circle or some other options. But in recent years, these newer stainless steel-style fire pits have really taken off and that’s largely because many will claim to be smokeless.
This is achieved by utilizing a double-walled design with vent holes toward the top of the inner wall. As you burn wood or whatever else, that first burn will cause some smoke to rise but some of it will travel through the gaps between the walls and escape out the small holes. This escaping smoke will get burned again, essentially eliminating it.
However, a key factor in all this is going to be how hot or big the fire is. The fire has to be pretty strong to get that second burn going. A nice thing about the East Oak design is that it features a bunch of oxygen intakes around the entire base and directly under the fire pit. All these intakes should really help to oxygenate the fire and help it get hot enough for that second burn.
That’s a pretty common design for these smokeless fire pits but an annoyance to me is that this design generally does not produce a lot of heat outwards but instead projects it upwards. This means that if you’re standing up and are close to the fire pit, then your upper body will be warm but your lower legs and feet won’t get much. So if you’re sitting down, you’re really only enjoying the ambiance of the fire, not so much the warmth. Some manufacturers have created workarounds for this like Solo Stove and their heat deflector shields but I personally think this is stupid. The heat deflector adds extra bulk, is unsightly, and costs an additional couple hundred bucks on top of an already expensive fire pit.
But times have changed and there are manufacturers claiming to make smokeless fire pits that adequately radiate heat outwards without any add-ons, one of them being East Oak. I don’t particularly understand the science behind it but this is apparently accomplished because the East Oak design features a wider circular base that gets smaller towards the top and the opening turns into a more square shape. Again, I don’t really understand how that works but it supposedly does and I’ll test that out a bit later.
In terms of assembly, this fire pit is pretty much ready to go. You have the main fire pit body, the ashtray that sits inside the fire pit, and the flame ring that sits on top. There really isn’t much to putting this fire pit together.
At this point, I’ve had a chance to use the fire pit and burn wood in it and I want to talk about how that went.
I burned a bundle of wood that I purchased from a local Safeway. It’s been sitting outside under the patio for the last couple of months and was dry. I burned the whole bundle at once just to make things faster. My 29” fire pit not only has a large opening, but it’s also deep. Allowing for a lot of wood to be burned at once. My bundle looked like nothing in there.
In terms of being smokeless, it certainly isn’t smokeless throughout the entire experience. When the fire first starts, there will still be smoke that’s blowing around and that’s not something exclusive to the East Oak but pretty much any fire pit. However, once the wood really started to burn, I did notice that there really was no trace of the smoke. This is the case even though I never witnessed any secondary burn. Maybe I didn’t have enough wood burning? I can’t really say so this will require some more testing.
In terms of East Oak advertising that this fire pit is able to radiate heat sideways, this is a hit or miss depending on how you want to look at it. I personally feel that there was no heat radiating directly to the sides of the fire pit. I can put my hands right up to the sides and basically feel no difference. The metal itself gets quite hot if you try to touch it but it weirdly does not put off any noticeable heat. The chairs that you see in the video above are less than 2 feet away from the fire pit and I was originally worried that they were too close and would get damaged by the heat but that is absolutely not a concern anymore. The chairs stayed chilled the entire time from ambient temperature, never even getting warm. However, if I were to sit at the edge of a chair and my body pokes above the top of the fire pit, then I’d feel A LOT of heat. Being about 2 feet away, the heat is almost unbearable. I would say that standing up and stepping back to 4-5 feet away, I can still feel the warmth on my torso, arms, and head but, again, nothing on my legs. I kind of want to give East Oak the benefit of the doubt and say that this fire pit may radiate more heat if more wood was burned at once, but I feel that I did put in a decent amount. If I had to burn two or three of those bundles at once just to get some lateral heat then this isn’t exactly the most efficient way of keeping warm. Take all that information as you will.
At the end of the day, how do I feel about this East Oak fire pit? As a mostly smokeless fire pit, it gets a pass because it does the job even when the secondary burn didn’t kick in and who knows? When it does things may be even better. As a fire pit that will keep you warm, well that depends on if you want to sit or stand all night. I personally bought this fire pit because it was advertised as being able to radiate heat outwards and in this case, I would say that the East Oak is a total failure. I do not recommend it if you are buying this fire pit to keep yourself warm while sitting down. It just won’t cut it. To me, the question of buying the East Oak all comes down to price. I personally bought it on sale for about $200 and that price for a 29” smokeless fire pit is crazy value. However, when not on sale this fire pit regularly sits around $400-$500. For that price, I would personally not buy this fire pit and just go with a Solo Stove Yukon which is in the same price range but the Solo Stove is better supported in the sense that more companies make accessories for it and you can do more with it.
And that’s going to be it. I’m going to continue and use my East Oak fire pit. I kind of know what it’s capable of now and what I want to use it for so I’m not too disappointed in my purchase.
If you're considering buying any of the products mentioned, please support my work by using the links below.
EAST OAK Fire Pit https://amzn.to/3nR80sj
EAST OAK Pan Stove Fire Pit Cover https://amzn.to/42TxPXc
Solo Stove Yukon 2.0 https://amzn.to/42Pm1FF
Want to support my work?
Consider visiting the shop and buying "Absolutely Nothing"
https://www.HaiHoangTran.com/shop/absolutely-nothing
or
Become a YouTube member!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLUO-2ltlWfydRZ7pRRnXkw/join
Become a Patron!
https://www.patreon.com/HaiHoangTran
or
Buy some official merch!
https://www.youtube.com/haitran/store
PayPal
https://www.PayPal.me/HaiHoangTran
or
Just shop on Amazon via this link!
https://amzn.to/2FgsDnG