Are vents adjustable?


 
David

David

TVWBB Pro
Did my first WSM cook yesterday, all went pretty good except for the shutdown. I shut it down about 4:30 or so with all vents closed. When I went to bed about 11, it was still in the 180 range on the hood temp. This morning it was sitting at 170 still. Starting looking for a problem and noticed that the top vent does not shut off completely as there is still about 5% or so still showing. So I pressed a piece of tin foil over it, and then placed a towel over it. The temp starting going down and within 30 minutes was down to 120.

So before I get dirty trying to fix the vent, can it be changed by me or it is YET another call to weber for replacement parts, this is after all the second top that I've had, the first being quite out of round. Beginning to see why they have such great service, because of poor quality control....................d
 
A pic would really help. It should close 100%. But with my first few(around 5) my coals would not die. Air leaks all around i guess. But after it starts to get a bit "gunky" it will kill the coals asap. And easyer temp controll comes with that.
 
I don't think it is poor quality control. If you can imagine the amount of units they mfg. Making round units is a bunch more challenging than making something square. I am a quality engineer and final inspection usually entails doing a sample size. If you try to 100% inspect everything in final you won't ship out enough product to keep the doors open...of course in-process is a whole other animal.......

Don't fret...Weber will take care of you until you are 100% satisfied!!
 
I'll agree that a pic would help. It could be something as simple as one of the vent tabs are bent or..?

Tim
 
One time my Mountain was running hotter than usual and I had the center section not put in properly..it was propped up just a tad in the back letting in air.................
 
I usually pull the middle section are rest the top on the charcoal bowl to shut down my cooker. I found with the middle section attached there is still enough air leakage around the access door and cooking sections to allow the coals to smolder without completely extinguishing even with all the vents closed.
 
Mark Q said:
I usually pull the middle section are rest the top on the charcoal bowl to shut down my cooker. I found with the middle section attached there is still enough air leakage around the access door and cooking sections to allow the coals to smolder without completely extinguishing even with all the vents closed.
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Not a bad idea, however, still not my problem.

The top vent will not close completely as it seems on close inspection that the small stop tab on the backside does not center with the hole when closed, leaving it still open. I'll call weber in the morning and get yet another top sent to me. And after an inspection of the bottom bowl, maybe that also.

@scotte..........I have found over my time that the companies with the best after market service also usually charge the most up-front so that they can have great after market service. We always had a saying in my business, do it right the first time, or spend more time and money correcting it later. If they mail me a new top, which I'm quite sure they will, that means that they have, for all practical purposes, shipped out two units for the price of one, and I haven't inspected the bottom unit yet to see if it has similar problems. No, it's poor quality control as far as I'm concerned, but I'm also quite sure that the bean counters have decided that it is cheaper in the long run to continue as is because many will not know they have a problem and continue clueless so they never report the problem. I participated in far too many corporate meeting to know that money is the bottom line and a great deal of discussion is always around the trade-off of perfection and error. It doesn't seem to matter about my continued frustration in using their product, I'll get one of those "we're so sorry" replies.

In fact, after examining the underside of the shut off value, it is not even made correctly. It should be larger than the hole and the little tab that stops the movement should not be on the leading edge but inside it by a 1/8 inch or so to completely insure closure. Heck, I'm no engineer and I can see that would be a huge improvement........................................d
 
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ScottE said:
Hope it all works out for you David!! ;)
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Thanks, I'm just a little irritated over this WSM process. I own two other Weber products and they perform quite well, not counting that $950 Ducane product I took to the street for the garbage man after a little over two years of use.
 
To answer your original question, the vent dampers can be replaced, but you have to drill-out the aluminum rivets and replace them with a kit from Weber that uses screws and nuts in place of rivets. Trying to bend/adjust those tabs can be tricky...you might bend the shape of the damper itself and make matters worse. Of course, you can try breaking off those little tab stops if you want. They just prevent the damper from spinning around and around, and in the old days Weber grills didn't have those stops, anyway. Something to think about.

I hesitate to say this, because you're already frustrated. But in my experience, the 22.5" WSM is harder to shut down than the 18.5". The 22.5 is just not made as tightly as the 18.5. Mine never shut down like the 18.5"...it just slowly burned down until the charcoal ran out.

I'm not sure a 5% opening in the top vent damper alone would account for the cooker only dropping 10*F between 11pm and the following morning. It's probably a combination of air infiltration between the middle section and the charcoal bowl, and around the access door, and maybe the bottom vents as well as that top vent.

It's an unfortunate circumstance, and you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out. You might get Weber to send you several tops and bottoms and never resolve it. Or you can learn to live with this flaw and appreciate the 22.5" WSM for its other great qualities like cooking capacity, ability to cook ribs flat on the grate, ability to cook a huge turkey, etc.

By the way, we had some discussion here on the board in 2009 with Mike Durso, a former Weber designer. He made it clear that they did not design the 22.5" access door with the same attention to detail that was put into the original 18.5" access door, which explains why it fits so poorly and why many people buy the Cajun Bandit SS replacement door. Here's the thread: http://tvwbb.com/showthread.php?12-Access-door-question

Good luck, David!

Regards,
Chris
 
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