Looking to purchase an RT-590, question about having it on a balcony

damianek

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Looking to purchse rt -590 question about having it on balcony. does anybody have this grill on balcony? pictures welcome. Currently have weber genesis in that place. but i was wondering that it will be to close to railing and siding. in manual it says 60” away from things. I had my weber for 15 years in that place with no problems. What do you guys think?
 
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Looking to purchse rt -590 question about having it on balcony. does anybody have this grill on balcony? pictures welcome. Currently have weber genesis in that place. but i was wondering that it will be to close to railing and siding. in manual it says 60' away from things. I had my weber for 15 years in that place with no problems. What do you guys think?
60’ would be in my neighbor’s yard 😦. Or is this one of those Spinal Tap Stonehenge moments?? 😆

It’s safest to keep a minimum of 3 feet between the grill and anything combustible or meltable, but I know a lot of people who do things differently.
 
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Looking to purchse rt -590 question about having it on balcony. does anybody have this grill on balcony? pictures welcome. Currently have weber genesis in that place. but i was wondering that it will be to close to railing and siding. in manual it says 60' away from things. I had my weber for 15 years in that place with no problems. What do you guys think?
At 60 feet away, verify WiFi operation.
 
I've got my 1250 pretty close to the wall of my house. Granted the hopper is on the back of a 1250/700 so there's some extra standoff between the house and anything hot, but I've kept an eye on the heat transfer and have never noticed even a slight warming of the wall.
 

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I wouldn't use ANY type of grill on a balcony. Most apartment/condo complexes strictly forbid it and for good reason. I recently had a grease fire in my smoker and even though it was on a cement patio and about 7ft from the house and it was still stressful. I used to keep my smokers up against the house tethered to it (we have very high winds here) and I was SO glad I didn't have it that way or there is no doubt I would have had some structure damage. No telling the extent but even 7ft away I had some black to clean off of the siding. The flames were super high too and a balcony with an overhang would have been bad news.

Decades I've been using various grills/smokers and never once had an issue. The one time I did though I was SUPER glad it wasn't near anything else.
 
Before buying my 590 I sent a picture of my covered (10’ ceiling) balcony to Recteq (see below). The guy there said it looked like a great place for the 590. I’m sure their lawyers would pounce on him for that. He was not as keen about any open flame grill, though. I have had it there for over 6 months now. There are two ceiling fans and I added another side wall mounted fan to try and help get the smoke out. I considered putting in an exhaust fan that vented through the roof, but decided it wasn’t worth the expense.

I have been diligent about keeping the drip pan clean so as to minimize the chance of a grease fire. I also start the smoker with the lid open and keep a close eye on it until it gets past the heavy startup smoke phase. And, I keep a fire extinguisher on the balcony as well as a charged water hose. Yes, there is more risk than if I were to put it downstairs out by the pool. But, then I wouldn’t use very often. The risk/reward trade off is acceptable for me. YMMV.

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Before buying my 590 I sent a picture of my covered (10’ ceiling) balcony to Recteq (see below). The guy there said it looked like a great place for the 590. I’m sure their lawyers would pounce on him for that. He was not as keen about any open flame grill, though. I have had it there for over 6 months now. There are two ceiling fans and I added another side wall mounted fan to try and help get the smoke out. I considered putting in an exhaust fan that vented through the roof, but decided it wasn’t worth the expense.

I have been diligent about keeping the drip pan clean so as to minimize the chance of a grease fire. I also start the smoker with the lid open and keep a close eye on it until it gets past the heavy startup smoke phase. And, I keep a fire extinguisher on the balcony as well as a charged water hose. Yes, there is more risk than if I were to put it downstairs out by the pool. But, then I wouldn’t use very often. The risk/reward trade off is acceptable for me. YMMV.

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This would have been a disaster with my recent experience that I just posted about. It would have gone from being surprised by the height of the flames and wondering if 5-7ft was far enough from the house to calling the fire department and hoping they got there quickly to put out the structure fire.
I've been of the opinion a grease fire is caused by owner neglect. Sorry if I stepped on toes but it's a fact.
Your post isn't as helpful or information as you think and falls firmly in the "thanks captain obvious" column.

Of course cleaning your smoker after every. single. smoke. is the best to avoid issues but let's be realistic here... life happens. If you are doing this for decades and don't have a single instance of a long slow smoke of a pork shoulder and then decide to cook a pizza the very next time at high temp forgetting to clean it beforehand, I'll be shocked. If it can happen to me it can happen to anyone.

I can't tell you how glad I was to have my smoker away from the house and nothing overhead because the situation would have been far worse. No doubt about it. I was surprised with how high the flames were and how quickly they got there. It was nearly instant and anything overhead would have been fuel immediately.

Most car accidents are due to negligence of some sort but I'm still going to wear my seatbelt as I pay attention to lower the likelihood of needing it. You still want to make simple decisions that could save your life just in case. Why the subject of the odds is my life I tend to be far more risk adverse than in other aspects of life.

It's your life though, you can do whatever you want. I just hope this balcony isn't in an apartment/condo complex because it's one thing to Darwin yourself but to drag everyone else down with you due to needless risks is pretty selfish.
 
I’ve had my 590 on our townhome deck for about 3 years with no issues. I pull it away from the siding about a foot or so. No smoke marks have been left on the siding or the soffit and wall doesn’t seem to get hot.
Further away is definitely safer though.
 
Sixty inches? That sounds like something the insurance companies lawyers wrote. It’s very difficult to get through owners manuals today because of these endless warnings how your new Time X watch may kill you.

I have my 590 in a semi enclosed area. It’s against stucco wall and in front of a large window into the pantry. And when I fire it up I pull it out probably a couple feet. And I’ve had no problem, but if there were to be a flareup I have plenty of room to work with, including a hose right by the cooker. While you might not have trouble on the balcony, you also might have trouble. And then you are kind of screwed.

If you choose to go ahead and do it on your balcony, be sure to keep it really clean. As someone up above said, most grease fires are a result of poor maintenance.

Enjoy your cooker!
 
Looking to purchse rt -590 question about having it on balcony. does anybody have this grill on balcony? pictures welcome. Currently have weber genesis in that place. but i was wondering that it will be to close to railing and siding. in manual it says 60' away from things. I had my weber for 15 years in that place with no problems. What do you guys think?
I try to roll my 590 as far away from the cedar lattice around the bottom of mydeckas possible, but 5’ is not happening. My main fire concern is from the three smoke vents in the rear, so I angle them away from lattice.

In the Pacific Northwest for 3/4 of the year nature provides the fire retardant since one or more of the many local words for precipitation describes the day. Not sure a torch could light the cedar.
 
I posted a similar image of this a while back, without the thermometer for context, and some people said I was nuts for having my RT-340 so close to the deck rail. Perhaps so. Here’s a picture tonight, RT-340 at 350° degrees and the vents are 12” away from the deck rail. You can see where the vents have ’smoked’ the deck rail. Ambient temp is 83° right now and the Thermapen at the deck is recording 111° The water temp in your hot water tank is probably 30° or more hotter than that! People should follow sound safety measures that make them, their family, and their insurance provider comfortable, but multiple feet spacing is not needed to keep a clean, well maintained pellet grill safe from setting one’s home on fire.
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I posted a similar image of this a while back, without the thermometer for context, and some people said I was nuts for having my RT-340 so close to the deck rail. Perhaps so. Here’s a picture tonight, RT-340 at 350° degrees and the vents are 12” away from the deck rail. You can see where the vents have ’smoked’ the deck rail. Ambient temp is 83° right now and the Thermapen at the deck is recording 111° The water temp in your hot water tank is probably 30° or more hotter than that! People should follow sound safety measures that make them, their family, and their insurance provider comfortable, but multiple feet spacing is not needed to keep a clean, well maintained pellet grill safe from setting one’s home on fire.
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I don't think it's as much a concern when the grill working properly, rather if there were a grease fire, which should really never happen unless people aren't cleaning excess grease from their grill or not using good practice and cooking a ton of greasy food at higher temps. I keep mine away from my guardrails, though they're vinyl covered aluminum.
 
I don't think it's as much a concern when the grill working properly, rather if there were a grease fire, which should really never happen unless people aren't cleaning excess grease from their grill or not using good practice and cooking a ton of greasy food at higher temps. I keep mine away from my guardrails, though they're vinyl covered aluminum.
I suppose I was responding more to the OP, who didn’t mention a grease fire specifically but did say that he was being told he needed 60’ spacing from the siding and the railing.
 

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