Testing How Well Tiles Can Protect Your Deck Under a Fire Pit
How we set up the tiles test
To test how effective tiles can be, we chose the Breeo X-24, which burns hotter than many other fire pits. The results would be almost worst-case, but we wanted to show what CAN happen with tiles. We ran just one test for about three hours. Using this fire pit on additional days would have increased the damage. Other fire pits might cause less damage. We did not test other fire pits on multiple days, so we can only speculate what the damage would have been.
Results of using tiles under a fire pit
The results of this test were compelling. The day after the fire pit test when everything had had a chance to cool down, we found that the tile over the composite decking was bonded to the decking. We turned that decking board over. Not only had the surface melted to create a bond, but the deck board was seriously warped, and we could see that the heat had gone through the board and caused a bubbling up of the plastic capping on the under side. The pressure treated deck board did not melt of course, but it showed charring on the surface. The PVC board had melted on the surface creating a pattern from the bottom of the tile on part of it and blackened charring closer to the center of the burn.
