The Lava Rock BBQ | Sky-High Lumber 
Prices

About a month ago, my wife and I 
decided that it was time to replace 
our barbecue. We use the barbecue 
constantly and in all seasons. By 
January there's often a trail 
through the snow to a barbecue you 
can barely see over the snowbanks.

The old barbecue was falling apart. 
The grates were thinned out, those 
metal tents over the burners were full 
of holes, and the tank holder was 
distintegrating. Leaving anything 
outside during a Canadian winter takes 
a toll.

Replacement parts, as seems to be the 
case these days, were either 
unavailable or prohibitively 
expensive. I had already changed out 
the burners once, using replacements 
meant for another model and brand. I'm 
sure my insurer would have loved that. 

In any case, the barbecue was also 
much too large for our needs. There 
are only two of us and it was one of 
those stainless steel behemoths. We 
bought it before hosting a large group 
of relatives one summer. I think 
there's a lesson there: never buy 
unnecessarily oversized durable goods 
for temporary purposes.

So I went online and started to look 
at barbecues, which run into the 
thousands of dollars! As I looked, I 
spotted one modest-looking little 
barbecue that looked like a model from 
20 years back. You know the ones: 
black cast aluminum, red igniter 
button, no side burner.

There was one difference though. Those 
barbecues originally had a grate just 
above the burners that you covered 
with lava rock, which sat below the 
main cooking grate. The burner flames 
heated up the lava rock and you cooked 
above that 'charcoal imitating' bed of 
hot rocks. But this one had the metal 
"tent" over the burners that has 
become the norm these days.

I've always thought that the new 
design isn't as good. The old lava 
rock barbecues heated up differently 
and cooked much better. At least, that 
was my recollection. 

Well, I decided to order the barbecue, 
and then went down to a local hardware 
store to buy an extra grate and a 
couple of bags of the lava rock, which 
they still sell for some reason, even 
though you can't find a lava rock 
barbecue.

When the new barbecue arrived, I put 
it together, with a few modifications. 
The thermometer came off the old 
barbecue. I drilled a hole through the 
lid of the new one and bolted the 
thermometer in place. Then I drilled a 
few holes in the frame of the barbecue 
and added a few bolt-hooks for the 
scraper, tongs, etc. And finally, I 
replaced the metal tent-style burner 
cover with the grate and lava rock.

My memories of the old lava rock 
barbecues were not wrong. It cooks so 
much better. If you get the 
temperature hovering between 400 and 
500F, everything grills so perfectly. 
You need a lava rock barbecue, 
denizens of gopherspace. You really 
do.*


         *     *     *


The cost of lumber is extraordinary 
here this summer! I'm renovating a 
bedroom and needed some 2x4s ($15 
each!) and a couple of sheets of 
plywood for the floors ($115 each). 
The home supply store in town seems to 
be taking advantage of the situation 
and charging much more than stores in 
neighbouring communities. But why not? 
Their competition went out of business 
last year. Now they're a local 
monopoly and they're behaving like 
one. Funny how the big online 
retailers are killing off local 
businesses until you're left with 
super-powerful-megacorp on one hand 
and super-powerful-local-store on the 
other.

Needless to say, after shelling out 
for that stuff, I began to look at 
construction and demolition materials 
a little differently. Almost every 
piece of wood that I have saved over 
the past decade has been used. Every 
piece that I have pulled out as I was 
making modifications has been 
salvaged.

I know that current lumber prices must 
be causing serious hardship and 
anxiety for people in the midst of 
building houses, but for me, it's been 
a good lesson in the amount of re-use 
that is possible during a project like 
this.




*I wouldn't publish something like 
this on the web. I have no idea about 
the environmental implications of 
widespread lava rock usage. But the 
audience in gopherspace is ... umm ... 
nicely restricted.