That fancy composite decking at my neighbor's cookout convinced me to stick with wood

Last July at a block party in Austin, I watched a brand new Trex deck warp under a hot grill that was maybe 20 degrees too hot. The owner spent $6,000 on that stuff and now he's got a permanent dent and weird discoloration near the fire pit area. Has anyone else seen composite get wrecked by heat like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancyn691mo agoMost Upvoted

20 degrees too hot" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Most composites are only rated for like 120 degrees sustained heat, and a grill easily hits 500+ near the base. So yeah, you're basically melting cheap plastic with a side of warped decking.

daniel1401mo ago

Funnily enough I learned this the hard way with my own deck last summer. Thought I was being smart putting a grill mat down but the heat still bled through and left this nice melted crater pattern right where the legs sat. Now I just keep a old baking sheet under each leg like some kind of redneck engineer.

william_garcia1mo ago

And the thing about those grill mats is they trap the heat in rather than letting it dissipate, so you're basically cooking your deck from both directions. That redneck baking sheet trick actually works better than most of the fancy stuff you can buy because at least the metal spreads the heat out. I've seen people put down those rubbery interlocking tiles under their grills and wonder why the whole thing starts smoking after an hour. The real answer is you need a thick piece of concrete board or some actual firebrick if you're going to put anything down. Otherwise you're just making a slow disaster that shows up later when you move the grill.