Charcol to electric smoker - right procedure?

Thanks for clarifying that !
 

I need help and suggestions for this smoker because I'm not smart as I look as you can see in my HS graduation picture!

Hello fellow smokers. I thought I would post a follow up. As I said in my previous post, I had trouble maintaining 230* in my smoker. Being the cheap skate that I am I spent another $11.00 at Home Depot and bought a 3'x5'x 1/4" piece of Hardie board. I believe its used as a under layment. Anyway I able to do the whole unit with it just about. I had pieces left over that I could of done the top but put a 1/2" piece of cutting board on the top instead. I didn't bother with the bottom. I used 1/4" x 1/2" long rivets. I left one air vent exposed at the top. I had a roll of aluminumized tape (used for hvac duct) laying around that I taped all the seams. I was surprised that the aluminum tape stuck as good as it did on the hardie board. I cranked my temp controller up and was able to get the unit up to 290* . I filled the water pan with sand. The hardie board got real warm on the front not so bad on the sides. They make a3x5 x1/2" thick hardie board for $16 that would insulate it even more, but the weight would be too much.(unless you put casters on it). What I did probably tripled the weight as it is. I'm not saying this is the best way, just a cheap way insulating this thing. I figure at least now I got the capability to smoke what ever I want. (just have to learn how to smoke right now). Thanks all for your valuable inputs!

After thinking about, this hardie board helped out a lot, but the outside of it still gets pretty warm during a smoke. That tells me its still losing heat. I'm going to look for something else to put over the hardie board to help keep the heat in, like a welding blanket or something.