Chim Cheroo

Chim cheroo, I finally have my chiminea up and running. I wrote not long ago about getting myself a chiminea, but first I needed to sort out the garden. It’s not a very big space and most of it is covered in concrete. There’s no way I could dig all of that out down to a level of soil, so I had to put on my thinking cap.

The Wife’s Idea

My wife came up with the idea of wood chippings to hide the concrete. Looking around on the internet, it seems wood chippings covering an area bigger than a footpath can become soggy and worn out after a couple of years. That means replacing them every so often, which I didn’t really fancy doing.

Any Colour You Want

Eventually, we came across several companies that make a wood chip look alike from old tyres! Not only that, they can supply them in a variety of colours, so you have a nice choice. I like the idea of recycling the tyres as they must be a nightmare to dispose of. Moving on and my wife chose the ‘fire brick red’ colour, so I measured up and we put the order in.

All The Way From Yorkshire

There are quite a few companies supplying this stuff, but we found one we really liked who is based in Yorkshire. I think it was about 8 days before the huge builder’s bag arrived by lorry. The driver said to me, ‘you won’t believe how much of this stuff I deliver every week!’ It was a typical wet and cold day, well not typical, but typical because I was having a delivery. I had to handball it into the garden, which was bloody hard work!

Strength Of A Dandelion

We laid one of those black mat things first, to stop any weeds from pushing up through the concrete. How do little weeds do that? Concrete is solid and even drilling it can take ages, yet a Dandelion can make its way through without the slightest problem! As you can see in the photo, we got it all laid and nice and level, leaving a space for the chiminea.

Lovely Neighbours

One of our lovely neighbours heard we were looking for a chiminea and said we could have the one in her back garden which she never uses anymore. How lovely was that? I gave it a brush down and a lick of heat resistant paint plus I sent for a protective rain cover for it. I have plenty of old dried out bits and pieces of wood, so it didn’t take long before we were sitting comfortably, nice and toasty on a Spring evening. We were both surprised by how much heat the chiminea gives off.

If anyone is interested in these decorative recycled chippings as they’re also great for children’s play areas too, then I can recommend the company we got these from. Ecochippings