Tampa Outdoor Kitchen Fireplace in St. Petersburg, FL - Costs, Quotes & Local Notes

A custom outdoor fireplace is published as wood-burning or gas, with gas fire pits as the smaller alternative. The published cost bands are clear about scale: the fireplace-specific band is 12,000 to 40,000 depending on size and stone, an installed outdoor fireplace as an add-on to an existing kitchen is 2,000 - 8,000, and the site-wide project band is 15,000 and 35,000, with 25,000 to 50,000 published for a custom build that includes a pergola, refrigeration, cabinetry, sink and an outdoor fireplace. The published payoff is social rather than financial: adding a fireplace is reported to increase outdoor-space use by roughly twice as much. Tampa Outdoor Kitchens is a free matching service, not a provider - we route your request to licensed local builders and we do not employ contractors.

What it costs in St. Petersburg

What an outdoor fireplace build actually involves

The published specification is a built structure, not a fire pit with a chimney. A custom fireplace is wood-burning or gas, with a firebrick-lined firebox that withstands 1,800-degree temperatures, a steel reinforced concrete cap over the firebox, and a stone veneer or full-bed stone exterior that matches the outdoor kitchen it sits beside. A built-in seating wall typically completes the assembly.

Those three details - the firebrick lining, the reinforced cap and the mass of the surround - are what separate a fireplace that lasts from a decorative box that cracks. Masonry works by storing heat and releasing it slowly, which is why the structure is heavy and why the footing under it matters more than the finish on it.

Gas fire features are the lighter path. A gas fire pit or gas fireplace still needs a gas line run from the meter, a permitted connection and clearance to combustibles, but it does not need the mass of a wood-burning chimney and it starts with a switch rather than a fire.

Published cost bands and what size and stone change

The fireplace band is the one item that is published separately from the rest of the project, because size and stone drive it more than anything else does.

The spread inside the 12,000 to 40,000 band is explained by the same published cost drivers as the rest of the niche: appliances, countertop material, and utility runs are the big-ticket items, and prices vary by 30 to 40 percent for the same layout based on appliance brands and stone selection. A fireplace quoted as full-bed stone against the same footprint framed in veneer over block is a different structure with a different footing, which is why the two quotes should not be compared line by line.

Where the fireplace is fed by gas, add the published gas line run from the meter at 400 - 2,000, and allow for underground line runs and trenching at 500 to 2,000 that many quotes leave out. Running gas, water and electric lines to a new outdoor zone is published at 2,000 to 5,000.

Fire performance, clearances and the Tampa Bay area conditions

The published ventilation rule applies to every cooking and heat appliance in the zone: open-air builds need no mechanical ventilation, but covered or enclosed areas require a rated vent hood, because an under-counter appliance or an enclosed room without airflow traps smoke and heat, damaging finishes. A fireplace under a solid cover is exactly the case that rule is written for.

Gas appliances carry their own published requirement - proper ventilation for gas appliances and the code-required clearances - and the failure signals published for a gas line are specific: a gas smell, weak flame, or hissing at a fitting means the line needs attention immediately, and a licensed pro should pressure-test the line and confirm the system is safe before you cook. Stainless and weather-rated construction, sealed electrical connections, and covers rated for UV exposure are the published list for anything that lives outdoors.

Tampa Bay is humid-subtropical: the National Weather Service's Tampa Bay office covers a wet season running roughly June through September that supplies most of the year's rain, alongside summer heat indices that routinely pass 100F and year-round humidity that never really dries out. Layer an airborne-chloride film over everything within a few miles of the bay and the Gulf -- which is all seven of these towns -- and the specification is set by salt and moisture more than by heat. That drives three decisions: 316 (marine) stainless for every exposed metal surface including hinges, slides and fasteners, because the 2-3% molybdenum that grade 304 lacks is what resists chloride pitting in coastal air (the Australian Stainless Steel Development Association notes grade 316 is 'often chosen for more aggressive environments such as sea-front buildings and fittings on wharves and piers'); sealed marine-grade polymer boxes or a CMU/concrete core rather than standard 'outdoor' MDF or particleboard, which delaminates and swells in coastal humidity; and countertops that tolerate thermal shock and UV without an annual reseal. Rinsing metal with fresh water after salty spells and using breathable covers rather than non-breathing tarps extends the life of all three. shapes the rest of the specification. Materials published as holding up best in heat and humidity are powder-coated aluminum and stainless steel, along with stone or brick veneer for the structure, with pressure-treated or cedar frames working well when sealed properly. Around the footings, USDA-NRCS mapping puts the Tampa area on Myakka fine sand -- Florida's official state soil and the single most extensive map unit in Hillsborough County (164,000 acres) -- a very deep, very poorly to poorly drained Spodosol (sandy, siliceous, hyperthermic Aeric Alaquods) formed in sandy marine deposits. Its diagnostic feature is a spodic 'hardpan' Bh horizon typically 20-36 in. down, above which permeability is rapid; the seasonal water table sits within 18 in. of the surface for 1-4 months in most years and recedes past 40 in. only in very dry seasons. For anchoring a kitchen island that is the whole problem: footing depth is set by the fluctuating water table and the spodic layer, not by frost, so over-excavate below the organic A/E horizons (roughly the top 20 in.) and found on compacted select fill or a thickened, reinforced slab edge rather than a shallow surface pad, or the pad will move as the water table rises and falls. Much of the built-up area is now mapped as Urban land or Myakka/Urban land complexes, so pull the site-specific map unit for the actual address in NRCS Web Soil Survey before footings are set. Sources: NRCS Official Series Description, Myakka series (https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/M/MYAKKA.html); NRCS Web Soil Survey (https://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/). and site drainage decide how the base is built: the slab should slope away from the structure, poor drainage leads to standing water, moss, and rusted appliance bases, and site drainage is one of the three things - weather patterns, soil characteristics, and building code requirements - that published guidance says to check before a design is finalized.

Local note for St. Petersburg

NRCS Soil Data Access point queries over St. Petersburg return almost entirely Urban land, 'Matlacha and St. Augustine soils and Urban land', 'Astatula soils and Urban land' and 'Myakka soils and Urban land'; the underlying natural soils are sandy and sit over shallow limestone, and the county's namesake Pinellas series -- a poorly drained fine sand with calcium carbonate-coated horizons and a water table 12-40 in. deep for two to six months of most years -- is the classic local profile (https://soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/P/PINELLAS.html). Footings on the peninsula therefore bear on sand above a shallow water table and, in places, over limestone.

St. Petersburg is one of the six member governments that formed Tampa Bay Water, and that regional utility supplies 100% of the city's drinking water -- a dynamic blend of Floridan Aquifer groundwater from regional wellfields, surface water drawn from the Alafia River, the Hillsborough River, the C.W. Bill Young Regional Reservoir and the Tampa Bypass Canal, and desalinated seawater sourced from Hillsborough Bay. The city disinfects with chloramines (a residual of 0.60-5.90 ppm across 2024) and its 2024 report records no maximum contaminant level violations, with calcium at 57 mg/L and magnesium at 6 mg/L among the commonly requested results. Source: City of St. Petersburg drinking water page (https://www.stpete.org/residents/utilities/water_services/drinking_water.php) and the city's Water Quality Report (https://cms5.revize.com/revize/stpete/Residents/utility_services/water_services/docs/Water%20Quality%20Report%202024-25%20Web_v07.pdf).

Utility accounts: City of St. Petersburg Water Resources Department · 727-893-7261

Checking a quote in St. Petersburg

• Is the quote itemised for the island, the countertop, the appliances and the connections, or is it one lump sum?
• Who pulls the gas and electrical permits, and is that cost in the quote?
• Is the countertop templated after the island is built, and what happens if the measurement is wrong?
• Are the appliances supplied by the contractor or by me, and who handles their warranty?
• What is the workmanship warranty on the masonry and the countertop, separately from the appliance warranties?

Frequently asked questions

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