List Price: $249.99
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My last grill was a decent Char-Broil model with a cast oven made before the current era of poorly-made Chinese grills. It didn't cost a fortune, but it lasted for about seven years, being used very regularly. Based on a bit of research, I was hoping that this made-in-North America Huntington grill was at least a cut above Char-Broil's garbage of today. After assembling it, I'm now hoping that maybe I'll get two years of use out of it. Pre-assembled parts were not assembled correctly, making it impossible to assemble the grill without first fixing the errors made at the factory. Parts were bent. Screw holes were not properly aligned. Paint was chipped. All of this came out of a box that didn't appear to be harmed in shipping at all. Indeed, I was initially impressed by the design of the packaging materials. Then I discovered that the parts must have been damaged before they were even packaged!
Aside from these issues, there are at least two ways in which the grill is poorly designed. For one, the warming rack legs don't fit into any holes in the lower half of the oven. They just sit there on the edges of the bottom half of the oven. Try to clean the rack when the grill is still hot, and the rack falls down onto the main grate. Wonderful. Accidentally nudge the warming rack when grilling, and the same thing is bound to happen. Second, there are massive vent holes on the back of the top half of the oven. Aren't grills supposed to get as hot as possible? Moreover, unlike Char-Broil, it doesn't look like Huntington offers a rock grate that also covers the burner. The grease drain cup sits right in front of/against the propane tank, as well, making it difficult to turn the propane on and off.
On the positive side, so far it seems like the grill gets fairly hot and cooks fairly evenly. There are quite a lot of flare ups, which would make a rock grate even that much more useful. I'm going to put briquettes in without a grate, but that's certainly not ideal.
In short, wish me luck and beware...
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