So last summer we bought a fire table from Ace hardware for our new deck. In late October we covered it up along with the other deck furniture, and left it for the winter. We uncovered It a couple of weeks ago to find this:
Disappointing to say the least. Although there were several snow storms here (Tunkhannock, north east PA), as far as I know, it was dry the whole time.
My questions are first, did I do something wrong here, or did something cause this? Or is this just a poor quality product?
And secondly, can I reasonably repair this, and if so how?
If not, then I need a new fire table, what features and/or qualities should I be looking for to insure that this doesn't happen again?
Best Answer
Yes and yes. I suspect that freeze/thaw cycles caused this damage.
It's hard to tell from the picture but it looks like this is a resin/fiberglass material (you can see glass mat fibers in the broken spot at lower left of picture).
You could fix it by removing all chips and dust and applying a resin putty filler (like auto-body filler/Bondo). Resin filler is easy to work with and shape if you have some experience with it.
You will still have an aesthetics issue because it will be ugly; however, you could prime and paint the whole top a color of your choice.
I do not know what you paid for it, only you can assess repair effort versus cost for a new table. I would try to fix it if I were in your shoes, but only because I hate to throw stuff out and I have filler on hand at all times.