Hey Spar - I have to ask - what do you do for "air breathing" for the fire?
Aha I was waiting for somebody to ask!
I hid the air vents but they're there. You're staring at one in the photo.
There are 4 tubes laying on the concrete pad that go from interior to exterior.
On the inside, there are flat rocks stacked around the ends so that ash doesn't plug them.
The exterior ends of the tubes are recessed enough that you can't see them without bending down low to the ground.
The bricks took quite some chipping to make holes on the bottom for the tubes to go through.
The rocks were placed over the tubes and mortared around them, which didn't really affect the way I did things.
Just for giggles, on the second day of using the firepit, I brought the portable compressed air tank out of the garage, blocked 3 ports, and then shot 100 psi air into the 4th.