needing some advice

I have a brinkmann gourmet electric smoker.  I'm new to smoking.  I had read that a lot of folks will use a foil packet for their wood chips.  When I tried this the heat element actually melted through the foil and caught my woodchips on fire.  I ended up spreading the woodchips around the element and this worked very well (very messy) but It seemed I needed to replace my chips every hour or so to keep the smoke flowing.   Is it normal to have to replace the chips so frequently?  does anyone have any advice?