How to Winterize a Gas Fire Pit: The Complete Checklist

By the Outdoor Heat Direct fire feature team · Authorized The Outdoor Plus, American Fyre Designs and Prism Hardscapes dealer · Reviewed September 2026

What actually damages a gas fire pit in winter?

Cold by itself does almost nothing. Every failure we see in spring traces back to water that got in and had nowhere to go. In rough order of how often it costs someone money:

1. Water standing in the burner pan. It freezes, expands, and works the burner ring loose from the pan or cracks a weld. Worse, it sits against the burner ports and the orifice all winter.
2. Moisture soaked into a GFRC concrete shell. It freezes inside the matrix and pops flakes off the surface. That is spalling, and it does not undo itself.
3. Corrosion of the burner and the ignition module. The Outdoor Plus states plainly that its electronic ignition is “water resistant, NOT water proof,” and its warranty excludes damage “caused by water, overheating, modification, abuse, improper storage, installation, or maintenance.”
4. Rodents in the tank compartment. A dark, dry, enclosed box next to a heat source is exactly what mice want in November. They chew flex connectors and ignition wiring.

Notice that three of those four are water problems and one is a housekeeping problem. Neither is solved by a tarp.

Why does freeze-thaw hurt a GFRC fire pit more than a steel one?

Glass fiber reinforced concrete is a composite of cement, aggregates, polymers and alkali-resistant glass fibers. American Fyre Designs describes it as “more freeze-thaw resistant than conventional concrete” — which is true, and also not the same as immune.

The mechanism is simple. Concrete is porous. Rain and snowmelt migrate into the pore structure. When that pore water freezes, its density drops by about 9%, per the U.S. Geological Survey — so it needs about 9% more room than it had. If the pores are already close to saturated, there is nowhere for that extra volume to go except outward, against the cement paste. One cycle does nothing visible. Forty cycles between October and March, which is a normal winter in most of the northern half of the country, lift the surface layer off in flakes and widen any hairline crack that was already there.

A carbon steel or stainless fire pit has no pore structure to saturate. It rusts, which is slower and more forgiving. That is the whole reason a concrete fire table needs a winter routine and a steel one mostly needs a dry pan. If you are shopping and comparing shells, the material trade-offs are laid out in our complete fire pit buying guide, and the GFRC collection shows how much of the market has moved to cast concrete.

Where is the drain hole, and how do you check it?

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the one that matters most.

Nearly every gas fire pit has a drainage path somewhere below the burner pan. On self-contained units it is often doing double duty as a vent. The Outdoor Plus says it directly in its fire pit insert manual: “The vent may work as a drain as well when installed at bottom sidewall to prevent water build up.” The same manual requires the enclosure to have “1 vent on at least 2 sides (2 vents total) at a minimum size of 18 sq. inches each,” placed in the mid to lower area.

American Fyre Designs is more explicit about water specifically. For a propane cylinder enclosure its manual requires “Two additional openings (1" x 4") … at the floor level (and spaced at 180 degrees) to allow for water drainage.”

To check yours: pull the media, look at the lowest point of the pan and at the base of the enclosure with a flashlight, and pour a cup of water in. If it does not disappear within a few seconds, the path is blocked — usually with a plug of sand, glass dust and leaf litter. Clear it with a stiff wire, not a drill bit. Manufacturer manuals for the brands we carry are collected on our manuals and guides page if you want to find the exact diagram for your model.

The 12-point checklist, with a time for each step

There are two different jobs here, and nobody separates them. Winterizing to store means the fire pit is done until spring. Prepping for winter use means you intend to light it in January and you are protecting it between burns. The steps overlap but they are not the same list.

Active work totals roughly 27 minutes for the full store-it list and about 15 minutes for the winter-use list. Times are our own field estimates, not manufacturer figures.

Step 10 deserves emphasis. A chip in a concrete shell is an open door for water. Patch it before the first hard freeze, not in spring — our repair kit listing is a single GFRC product, so order early rather than assuming it will be on the shelf in March.

What does winter do to each fire pit material?

Manufacturers publish very little material-by-material winter guidance, so this table combines what the manuals do say with standard corrosion and concrete behavior.

Is an airtight fire pit cover worse than no cover at all?

Often, yes. This is the least intuitive thing on the page.

A fully waterproof, unvented cover stops rain going in. It also stops moisture going out. Ground moisture, residual water in the pan and condensation from every warm afternoon get trapped against concrete and metal and stay there for five months. An uncovered fire pit in the same yard dries out between storms. The covered one never does.

Both manufacturers we read insist on covering — The Outdoor Plus says the fire pit “must be covered at all times” when not in use, and American Fyre Designs says to “cover the unit when not in use” and to keep it “free of foreign materials (trash, water, snow, etc.).” Neither is telling you to build a terrarium. A good winter cover has: vent grommets or mesh panels so air moves; a breathable water-resistant fabric rather than a sealed vinyl sheet; a full-length skirt that clears the ground so it does not wick; and a drawcord that holds in wind without sealing the hem to the patio. Our cover selection is small — four products — so if none fits your footprint, measure and ask us rather than forcing a generic tarp onto a cast shell.

If your fire pit lives under a roof, the calculus changes; see using a fire pit under a covered patio or pergola. And if it sits on a hardscape that holds meltwater, fire pits on pavers, concrete and stone covers how the base itself feeds moisture back into the unit.

What happens to propane pressure in cold weather?

Propane boils at −44 °F (−42 °C) at atmospheric pressure. Below that it simply will not vaporize, and the fire pit will not light at all. That number gets quoted constantly and it is mostly irrelevant, because the practical problem starts far warmer.

Vaporization is an endothermic process: turning liquid propane into vapor pulls heat out of the remaining liquid and through the tank wall. Engineering Toolbox puts the failure mode plainly — if heat transfer into the liquid is insufficient, “the liquid cools down and the evaporation is reduced.” Two things make that worse in winter. Cold ambient air slows heat into the tank. And a half-empty tank has less wetted surface area to draw heat through, so a 20 lb cylinder at a quarter full in 20 °F weather can struggle to sustain a high-BTU burner even though the gauge shows fuel remaining.

What you see is a flame that starts fine and shrinks over twenty minutes, or an ignition that will not hold. Keep the cylinder as full as practical, and if you run a large burner in a cold climate, natural gas removes the problem entirely — that trade-off is the core of natural gas vs propane fire pits.

Storage is not negotiable. The Outdoor Plus is unambiguous: store cylinders “outdoors in a well-ventilated area out of reach of children,” with “threaded valve plugs tightly installed,” and they “must not be stored in a building, garage, or any other enclosed area.” American Fyre Designs uses nearly identical language. A disconnected tank goes outside, upright, on a hard surface — never in the garage, never in a basement, never in the shed you heat. If your cylinder lives inside the fire pit base, check that the tank enclosure vents are clear before you cover anything.

Do you have to shut the gas off on a natural gas fire pit?

Yes, if you are done for the season. The Outdoor Plus requires an external shutoff on every fire pit — “All fire pits must have a gas shut off on the outside of the exterior of the firepit to allow for emergency shut off and maintenance” — and its general manual says to “turn off the gas at the source” when storing.

What happens if you leave it open: the branch line and the appliance valve stay pressurized for five months with nobody watching. A flex connector chewed by a rodent, a valve stem seal that stiffens and weeps in the cold, or a fitting that loosens through freeze-thaw movement all become slow leaks in an unattended yard. A quarter turn on the key valve removes that exposure and costs nothing. Leave the valve accessible, not buried under the cover, so you can reach it without unwrapping the unit. If you are planning winter burns, leave it on and simply check for leaks with a soap solution at the start of the season — local rules on gas appliance shutoffs are summarized on our fire pit regulations page.

Should you pull the fire glass or lava rock out for winter?

It depends on the media and on which of the two procedures you are running.

Lava rock is porous. It absorbs water, holds it, and if you light a burner under saturated rock the trapped moisture flashes to steam and the rock can pop. If you are storing the unit, take it out, dry it, and bag it. If you are burning through winter, clear snow and ice off it and give it time to dry before lighting.

Fire glass does not absorb water, but it does something almost as annoying: it traps a wet layer against the pan and keeps the burner damp. Storing it dry is the cleaner answer. If you leave it in, the drain hole has to be clear, because the glass is now a sponge-shaped lid over your pan.

Either way, respect the depth limits. The Outdoor Plus specifies “no more than 1" of burning media above the height of the burner,” and American Fyre Designs insists you “keep the screen clear of decorative media and any other items / debris at all times.” Piling media deeper to keep snow off the burner is a bad trade. Note too that decorative stone and glass are excluded from The Outdoor Plus warranty, so a season of frost damage is on you. Restocking options are in fire glass and fire rocks, and the durability comparison is in fire glass vs lava rock.

Can you use a gas fire pit in winter?

Yes, and a cold clear night is when a fire pit is worth the most. Do not write the season off. Five precautions:

• Clear snow and ice off the burner and media before lighting. American Fyre Designs lists keeping the unit “free of foreign materials (trash, water, snow, etc.)” among its operating do's. Snow melting onto a hot burner is also how you crack a pan.
• Check the drain first. A blocked drain plus a melting snow load means the pan fills while you burn.
• Let a frozen concrete shell temper. Run the burner low for the first ten minutes rather than going to full output on a saturated, sub-freezing GFRC top. This is our recommendation, not a published manufacturer instruction — but rapid heating of wet concrete is exactly the condition that drives surface spalling.
• Do not light it standing on ice. Salt and clear the approach. Most fire pit injuries are trips, not burns.
• Use a wind guard. Winter wind kills flames and wastes fuel; the wind guard options pay for themselves in a cold climate.

Between burns, still cover it — and still make sure that cover breathes. Clearance rules do not relax in winter either; the by-brand figures are in our clearance requirements reference.

What to do with each component

Replacement burners and ignition systems are both narrow categories in our catalog — 22 burners and just 2 ignition kits — which is another argument for protecting the ones you have. Brand-specific winter behavior is covered further in our Prism Hardscapes fire tables guide, the American Fyre Designs guide, and the The Outdoor Plus guide.

Frequently asked questions