Q-Dat's Fire Thread - ? Best Material to put under cooker on wooden deck

W

wheelterrapin

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I did not want to hi-jack Q-dat's thread on the fire he had with his stick burner but this woke me up as I am sure it did a lot of other folks. I have several cookers, as many folks do, and I cook on a wooden deck. I am now very concerned and want to come up with some fire resistant material to put on the floor under the cookers when I am cooking. I have never used concrete board but would this be something that would work as a fire retardant floor mat under a cooker? I am looking for ideas.
 
I bought 2 sheets of sheet metal, and am going to mount them on a piece of plywood. Costs under $40, and with the metal, any cleanup is easy.
 
I had a metal sheet under one of my cookers and clean up was ok but it got real slick prior to cleaning up. It was just kind of messy. I don't have the problem anymore but I would think just a couple of landscape pavers would do just fine. They make pavers that are 18" X 18" so maybe 4 for a WSM or an EGG. You could even lay out the pavers and nail like a 1 X 1 on the sides of it to keep it in place.

Trucky9754

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Sounds like a good idea Bill and the sheetmetal would not represent a toe stumper like the thicker concrete board. I will have to go and price the sheetmetal. I am building a separate enclosure (with doors) storage room for my CTO and it will be in a permanent location on the deck. My other cookers, WSM, Weber OTG, Master Forge, and SS Gasser get moved around a lot so I will probably just designate a permanent spot for them. I am guilty of walking off from the pits when they are cooking, especially the CTO since it is basically a set it and forget it cooker but I have got to become more safety minded or I will burn down my house and that will be the end of my BBQ endeavors and maybe my life.
 
Trucky the pavers would be great if I can make a permanent place available to set my different cookers and not have to move them around but right now I sort of drag out the one I am going to use (Not the Ole Hickory CTO as it stays in one place) and cook and then drag them back to where I store them.
 
Just got to thinking (dangerous for me) and was wondering if there is some kind of fire retardant material a person could spray on the deck around the cookers that would prevent a fire?


wheelterrapin said:
I did not want to hi-jack Q-dat's thread on the fire he had with his stick burner but this woke me up as I am sure it did a lot of other folks. I have several cookers, as many folks do, and I cook on a wooden deck. I am now very concerned and want to come up with some fire resistant material to put on the floor under the cookers when I am cooking. I have never used concrete board but would this be something that would work as a fire retardant floor mat under a cooker? I am looking for ideas.
Click to expand...
 
There are coatings you can apply to wood that will retard the burning, but, given the time and heat you are dealing with, they are more expensive and less useful than you might hope. I would actually consider the use of metal driveway pans or other heavy duty metal sheet to be your best option.
 
Never seen a metal driveway pan, I will have to look into this, thanks.
 
big giant version of the pan you use to catch oil drips in your garage.
 
Maybe ceramic tile on a wood deck?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
 
landarc said:
big giant version of the pan you use to catch oil drips in your garage.
Click to expand...

What he said. You can usually find them at auto parts stores. And NEVER leave a smoker on a wooden deck unattended. I'll leave the shades open so I can see the smoker from inside the house.
IMG_0014.jpg
 
Good thread. I'm having a deck built and I've been thinking of what I want in that area of the deck. I'm putting two FEC's and a FEC Charbroiler and a FEC Pelletgrill (see a trend).

Russ
 
I struggled with this issue for a while....came to realize it depends a lot on the fuel source and cooker that you're using and what you have to do to maintain the fire.

With my BWS party and my friend's small offset (cooking with K), I've often found myself putting out the beginnings of deck fires. It's always some stray coals that ended up off whatever fire resistant pad I was using at the time....and always the result of some kind of ash cleaning / charcoal changing operation.

I eventually gave up and moved the cooker to the driveway and did all my cooking out front of the house (also gave up K for Wicked Good). No fires in the driveway, but not the ideal place to cook. I decided my best solution for cooking BBQ on the deck was to cook with pellets....so I added a MAK to my arsenal. Problem solved....and no need for any kind of pad or mat.

If you choose to go with a large piece of sheet metal or driveway pan route, make sure to attach some kind of traction strips (like the sandpaper type stick-ons they make for hard wood stairs). A little grease on metal turns things very slippery and dangerous awfully quickly.
 
I used a piece of woven fiberglass cloth (left over from a project at work) and stapled it to a piece of plywood. The cloth is good to 1200 degrees. You might check a gasket house and see if they have any scraps.
 
A few years back I picked up an actual "BBQ mat" from home depot. It was made out of some sort of rubber/ fiberglass/mineral wool composite. Wasn't big enough for a large offset but it fit under my grill fine. Don't know if they still carry them.
 
Lot depends on size of the cooker...it's going to limit what you can use.

The cloths you buy for soldering would suffice , you can probably buy them rather large.
Also there are welding/fire blankets out there that are massive that large companies are required to use while welding in certain areas.
 
Fire blanket would be a good option, but it's kind of pricey. You can get it at any welding supply store. It's made to handle hours of grinding and hot slag from welding and cutting.
 
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