Grill Repair

I'll admit it, I'm a grilling freak. At the first hint of warm weather, you can guarantee that I'll be outside firing up the grill and cooking up some good old fashioned bbq. As a matter of fact, I don't even need warm weather, as long as it's sunny, then I'm grilling. And since I love it so much, you can bet that I've gone through quite a few grills in my day. I've learned the hard way that if you want to keep your grill operational and not have to replace it every few years, the best thing you can learn how to do is to keep your grill properly cleaned and maintained.

Here are a some useful tips for properly maintaining and cooking on your grill:

• A quick and easy way get all the grilled-on food and sauce off of your cooking grids is to simply cover them with aluminum foil and turning the grill on high for around ten to fifteen minutes. This will burn all the stuck-on grime, turning it into a fine white ash that you can easily remove with a wire brush.
• Squirrels, raccoons and other varmints can pose a major problem by chewing up your gas supply hoses in search for bbq drippings. You can avoid this by occasionally wiping your hoses down with an ammonia and water solution.
• After a while, the body of your grill will start to deteriorate due to the elements, causing oxidation, white spots, and even rust. An easy way to extend the life of your grill is to coat the body with a small amount of vegetable oil using a paper towel.
• The inside of your grill is even more susceptible to deterioration because of not only the elements, but also because of the constant exposure food grease, which is highly corrosive and should be cleaned from the grill periodically to lengthen your grills life span. Left unattended, this grease will actually begin to corrode away the bottom of your grill. You can remove all the accumulated grease from the inside of your grill by using a putty knife to scrape it off and then run a vacuum the inside of the grill. If your grill has a porcelain coated surface, do not use a putty knife. This can damage the porcelain coating and expose the steel to the corrosive food greases. Once you have cleaned the inside of your grill, use a light coating of vegetable oil on the inside as well to help protect it.
• You can use stove polish to revitalize your grill's finish by adding color. The wax will also help to protect it from the elements.

Even with the best maintenance, at some point you're going to have something go wrong with your grill. It's just unavoidable. What amazes me is that often when that happens, many people opt to simply go out and purchase another grill.

That may be fine if you have money to burn, but if you're like me I'll take a $20-$50 replacement part any day and install it myself rather than fork over $300-$1000+ for a new grill. It's just common sense.

You may be thinking, "But i don't know the first thing about repairing a grill" and I'm here to tell you - it's not as difficult as you might think. Grills are actually quite simple to repair, and you can find char broil gas grill parts at your local hardware store, or if you're willing to wait for shipping, you can get them online for super-cheap.

My favorite place to get char broil gas grill parts is at GrillParts.com. They have a huge selection of grill parts for nearly any type of grill - gas or charcoal.

GrillParts.com offers complete char broil gas grill parts listings by category including burner assemblies, cooking grids, ignitor components, warming racks and a wide range of miscellaneous frame and cart parts.