As for the melted siding, we’ve had a few friends experience similar. We’ve still got aluminum here, so no worries on melting.. a little worry on whether something *behind* the aluminum would catch, though. So we try to keep the grill a safe distance away while we’re cooking.

First, just after we moved from a concrete block beach cottage where our grill was less than a foot away from the house, I learned the hard way that you can’t put a gas grill that close to a house that has vinyl siding. Oops. No fire or serious damage, but there’s now a rather ugly patch of wavy siding in back.

Then just last month I went to pre-heat the grill for its inaugural use for this spring, I started all the burners, closed the lid, went inside, then when I went back out later with the steaks there was a big patch of soot on the front of the lid and the handle just below there was on the ground - melted. Apparently there is a known problem (except I didn’t know it) with spiders making wee little nests inside the tubes in your grill over the winter, that can block up the gas enough to then turn it temporarily into a mini-flamethrower out one of the handles. No one was in front of it to get hurt, or to notice the initial smoking that likely happened before the flame.

We just live and learn and hope for continued good luck!