Steel and aluminum patio tables

Metal tops meet the afternoon sun first and feel it most. These 15 tables are steel and aluminum, with a stainless and a tempered glass top in the mix, and all are listed for patio use. Four are sold as sets. Think about where the 6 PM sun lands on the top before you choose the material.

Tops that meet the sun

Steel tops lead the group at eight, with aluminum on four, stainless steel on two and tempered glass on one. Bases are steel on 13 and cast iron on two. A metal top at the end of a July afternoon is warm to the forearm, and a glass top throws glare back at anyone facing west. Neither is a reason to skip the material. Both are reasons to walk the patio at the hour the table will be busiest, and to ask where the umbrella will stand.

Four sets and the singles

Four of the 15 products are sold as sets, and the others are tables on their own. A black table set with an umbrella base is at $272, the kind of line that saves a trip through the umbrella shelf. Single tables start around $77. Sets save matching a top to a base by hand, but they also fix the choices, so open the page and read what the set includes.

Shape counts: square on every product, round on 10, rectangular on six. Squares and rounds outnumber rectangles, so this shelf is mostly two-tops and four-tops.

Say the plan has eight 30-inch squares along a wall. That is 240 inches of table, or 20 feet, before any gap between neighbors and before the 36-inch service aisle at each end. Walls are always shorter than the plan, so measure the wall first.

Size, height and what the base asks of the ground

Brick, cobblestone and old deck boards are rarely level, and a steel base does not forgive a bad floor. Look at the foot of the base before you order. Thirteen of these tables sit on steel bases, and weight cannot fix a leg that does not touch the ground. If the patio floor worries you, talk to a specialist and describe the surface.

Every table here is listed for patio use, and 11 are listed for indoor use as well. That makes the group handy if the dining room and the patio share a look. Even so, rinse, drain and cover at season's end.

Want a different material? Plastic teak patio tables, resin patio tables and wood patio tables sit alongside. The whole family lives under patio tables, and the layout belongs in patio plans.