A number of our customers have decks built with Trex composite decking boards. Trex is the leading manufacturer of composite decking. These customers found out about us, not by Googling how to protect a deck under a fire pit, but by calling up Trex and asking if they can use a fire pit on their new deck. And Trex tells them that they can, but only if they use DeckProtect™.
Trex offers the popular Solo Stove on its web site. Even though Solo Stove is not as hot underneath as most other wood-burning fire pits, Trex will not show the Solo Stove on a deck unless it is protected with DeckProtect™. We sent Trex a specially sized 20.5” DeckProtect™ for one of their photo shoots. They sent us photo we are using as the cover shot for this blog.
Trex publishes a series of bulletins for professional deck builders. In one bulletin they address the topic of using a fire pit on a deck. They are very clear that there are only two solutions. One is to build the deck with a specially constructed space for a fire pit in which the decking surrounds an opening for the fire pit and is separated with an appropriate insulation. The second way recommended in this bulletin is to use DeckProtect™. In fact, DeckProtect™ is the only solution recommended by any composite decking manufacturer.