DO NOT buy an "Expert Grill" Charcoal Chimney

[tsonka]

I wanted a second charcoal chimney, went to Wal-Mart, they dod not have a Weber one (which is what my other is), so I bought what they did have.


This thing is a burn hazard, as the coals became hot the wood handle started burning

And as you can tell by the stickers showing no sign of heat, I did not have it super hot

 

[SmokinAl]

Holy cow!
That's not good!
Al

 

[bdskelly]

I went with house brand once. It burned out in less that one summer. My Weber is 3 years old now and is still solid. The key is after they cool take them into the garage and store it there . Don’t leave them outside in the rain to rust and corrode.

 

[PerazziMx14]

Please remove

 

[Grillingone]

I wanted a second charcoal chimney, went to Wal-Mart, they dod not have a Weber one (which is what my other is), so I bought what they did have.


This thing is a burn hazard, as the coals became hot the wood handle started burning

View attachment 349615 View attachment 349616


And as you can tell by the stickers showing no sign of heat, I did not have it super hot

The "Expert Grill" products by walmart are the worst. I too wanted a second chimney and was in walmart and looked for Weber just like the one I have. The didn't have so I bought the walmart Expert Grill Chimney. It now has a cheap plastic handle. Well, I started it up and when the coals were ready I put on my fireproof glove and picked up the handle. The chimney fell over into the grill and the plastic handle was stuck to my glove. It just melted right off the chimney. If I had picked it up with a bare hand, like in the picture on the product, I would have lost all my fingers.

 

[RiversideSm0ker]

Holy moly!!!

G

 

[texomakid]

Wow! Good info guys. This might save someone from injury or worse.

 

[forktender]

That's insane.

 

[mlk18]

I presume 95% of the people who buy Expert Grill products will use them very casually 3 maybe 4 times per summer and then toss them in a shed. Or buy them as a short term unit until something of good quality comes in stock.

 

[bill1]

"Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how did you like the play?"...

The walmart website shows the present model is the plastic handle with two short sheet metal screws--clearly a problematic design. The wood handle would be a safety improvement but it appears that was NOT the product's development cycle and that the earlier wood design was changed, probably to be made cheaper in plastic.

I think the product would be usable if one immediately replaced the plastic with a hardwood wooden dowel attached with (at least) 1" long screws. Painting the back side of the heat shield in black would help, but I note others don't do that. And of course, adding a second heat shield (roofing flashing would be fine) would work wonders as well.

I can't really account for Tsonka's handle charring since Weber and others use wood handles as well and a single similar heat shield. I suspect the difference is the use of (high density) hardwoods in the successful designs instead of something that could have been bamboo-like in Tsonka's iteration.

I've seen products get recalled for less. There's probably a way to report this....???

 

[SmokinEdge]

I wanted a second charcoal chimney, went to Wal-Mart, they dod not have a Weber one (which is what my other is), so I bought what they did have.


This thing is a burn hazard, as the coals became hot the wood handle started burning

View attachment 349615 View attachment 349616


And as you can tell by the stickers showing no sign of heat, I did not have it super hot

Trying to wrap my mind around the fact that paper decals on the chimney did not burn at all ( closest to the fire) yet a hard wood handle 4” from the heat source burns? I’m having a problem believing that. Sorry.

 

[bill1]

The plastic handle merely had to melt at the connection points to fail. There's a fairly hefty thermal conduction path out to those plastic handle attachment screws via the handle support, more than the weaker thermal conduction path to the heat shield via their attachment rivets.
Plus, plastics can melt as low as 350F. The paper labels would burn at "Fahrenheit 451" so could survive while the plastic handle gave way.
But like SmokinEdge I do have some misgivings with the wood handle pic. The charring appearance isn't at the top and bottom, nor on the edge facing the (labeled) heat sheld, but the "away" side, and that wooden handle would not be easily rotated. Not sure there wasn't another heat source at play on that one, besides the coals inside .