Had my Pit Boss vertical pellet grill hopper catch fire earlier this week, and I'm pissed. Did a short cook, went through the shutdown process like always, and a few hours later went outside to put the cover on… only to find the hopper on fire. I clean the burn pot before every single cook, so it wasn’t a buildup issue. Bought the unit in May, and this was only cook #4 or 5. The grill is slightly used but still basically new, and I’ve owned pellet grills before without anything like this happening—though this is my first vertical one.
I called Pit Boss, and they told me they could send out replacement parts but wouldn’t replace the whole unit. The paint is now chipped from the fire, and their suggestion was to sand and repaint it myself. That doesn’t exactly make me feel great, especially when we’re talking about a cooking appliance and possible exposure to damaged coatings. I’m having trouble trusting it again, even with new parts, and it feels like this could easily be a product defect rather than something I did wrong.
Am I wrong to be pissed and expect a full replacement? Is it unreasonable to think about safety and not want to roll the dice again with this same machine? Or am I overreacting here?
TL;DR: Pit Boss vertical pellet grill hopper caught fire on cook #4–5. Pit Boss says they’ll send parts, not replace it. Paint is damaged, they told me to sand/repaint. Wondering if I’m wrong to want a full replacement and if I can trust it again.
by Competitive-Cat-2649
17 Comments
Same response you’ll get from almost any grill company, honestly. Paint generally isn’t considered a warranty item. Lots of folks with Recteq’s who have arguably the best customer service of a grill company that have gotten the same response after a hopper or grease fire.
Exposure from damaged coatings is such a minor concern from this type of incident its not even worth discussing.
Nothing your food touches has a coating anyway.
Its frustrating though for sure. But that response is what youre going to hear from every company for this type of deal.
I just bought a new series 4 vertical tecently. I also have 2 other pit boss grills. On those, I do a cool down before I shut them off. I was thinking of doing that with the vertical smoker also. I had read about that in another thread. Mine used to smoke out of the hopper on standard coolown. Now, with me cooling it down first, it hasn’t happened.
From their perspective, they don’t know what may have caused this. A magical bead of grease trickled into the pot and found a warm ember, and then suddenly the wind picked up reliting the ember. Grease catches fire and the grill burns.
A fire is a risk anytime you cook, anywhere.
Likely an issue with moisture and/ or a build up of pellet dust in the auger that caused the fire to occur.
It’s a bummer, but as others have said, most other companies aren’t going to warranty paint for a fire that wasn’t their fault. It also won’t affect anything operational, not affect the food at all.
You should sand it to get the bubbled paint off. Repaint with a high temp paint if you would like it to look nice and stay looking nice. Don’t repaint it if you’re on with it rusting in the areas with damaged paint.
To keep this from happening again, never pour the last bit of pellets in from the bag with all the dust in them, switch to better pellets like B&B, Bear Mountain or Lumberjack that tend to have less dust in the bag, and don’t leave your another in the rain uncovered ever.
It was your negligence that it caught fire. Why should they replace? Did you clean it out between cooks, did you keep it covered, did you make sure no clumps or pellet dust got into the hopper?
So you put it in shutdown mode and left it there for a few hours unattended to and now want a new grill. Bro you’re lucky thats all it did and didn’t catch your house on fire!! I always lower the temp then after a few minutes I’ll put it in shutdown mode.
Lol, what??
So you want them to replace it because of something that happened on your end? Neither you nor the company knows exactly what happened. Backfires happen all the time in pellet grills. That’s why you’re supposed to still keep an eye on them…
Pitboss
I don’t know – I have to disagree with most of the comments. I think its practically new, you used it according to instructions, you took the mandatory safety precautions, and it caught fire, badly. I don’t see how you are negligent. I never watch my pellet grill cool down to make sure it does not catch fire after I shut it down – I am usually eating whatever I just cooked – to expect one to do so seems unreasonable, especially if they did not tell you to do that in the instructions.
Did the fire cause the damage to your deck too, despite you having it on a pad? If so they should feel lucky you only want a replacement.
To make sure it does not happen again, I think they should replace the whole unit. The burden should be on *them* to make sure their product is safe and does not burn down your house when used according to instructions. They can change the instructions, which sounds like a good idea, but that does not really help you or make you whole.
If you do some digging you will see that the vertical pit bosses catch fire ALOT. I dunno what is with all the clown show responses. Mine went up mid cook and literally burned the exact same way. The flame never made it into the cabinet and was confined to the hopper(mostly).
I honestly think it has something to do with the design but they will never admit to that. I would say mine had a fair bit of use but was taken care of and maintained.
I’ve honestly only seen/heard of one horizontal going up in flames, but that thing was used religiously.
Hope you get a new smoker soon!
Time to step up and buy a Recteq
Depending on what parts they will send you that might be a fix for why it started or a partial fix. I know it sucks to have to go through this but once you get it done with new parts you may have a better unit. I would take all the parts l could talk them into and redo it.
I had a combo wood and propane vertical that would always try to catch fire. Created great bbq but….. Went to normal barrel and pretty much quit worrying
Had smoke coming out of the hopper on my second cook.
Kinda freaked out.
Was making a brisket for the first time and hosting the whole neighborhood the same night with it.
Manually ran the auger for a bit and the smoke went away and never came back.
But temps skyrocketed and I got super worried I screwed up my brisket.
Everything was fine in the end. But man did that get me nervous lol.
Take it off your deck before a fire takes more from you
If you don’t clean your grill this is what you get I got to make sure that Hopper is nice and clean
You’re over reacting. Sand it, or don’t, it won’t matter. Hopper fires happen in every brand.