hope this is the right forum…we just got a new (little) propane grill, a Coleman Road Trip. We keep it out on the deck. I don’t know whether to get a cover for it or not, some say yes, some say no. Some say a cover is only good for protecting it from birds and the sun. Some say a cover will hold in moisture and that’s not good. It’s out there in the rain right now. We will store it in the garage for the winter. So should I get a cover or not?
I’ve had a cover for my (very last generation) Ducane for ten years. I think I’ve covered it twice, for a total of about three months.
Given the hassles of a cover - can’t put it on til cool, have to find someplace to put it when it’s off, tends to attract mice and such when left folded up - and the relatively small amount of long-term wear and tear you’re going to put on a modestly-priced grill… I’d only cover it for winter or non-grilling season. No advantage to covering it even between weekends.
ETA: IMVHO, grill covers are a somewhat overpriced upsell item. They *sound *like a good idea as you’re buying the thing, but in practice…
Agreed, we have one for our gas Weber that has spent more time balled up on a patio chair than actually covering it. It’s pretty gross now, I hosed it down over the weekend, but we’ve grilled the last 2 nights, so there it sits, on the chair.
Don’t bother.
I never use one. Too big a pita if you’re grilling and smoking a lot. Plus with four cookers scattered around my patio if they were all covered it would look like an elderly person’s living room. We can’t have that now, can we?
Sure, they’ll rust quicker. That means I get to replace them with something new and fancy.
Grill covers suck.
It’s always grill season. I’ve brushed away two feet of snow to get to my grill. I’ve grilled in the rain, day or night, and in extreme Summer heat.
What is a grill cover?
Well… I keep my grill covered whenever it might rain (and I live near Seattle, so that’s 10 months of the year). Recently, a friend refused to believe that my grill is about to celebrate 10 years of regular use. He thinks grills have a five-year life span and that covers are just a waste of money. I think that in the same time frame he had to replace his grill, I only had to replace a cover. (The first one got ripped).
That said, I didn’t bother with a cover when I lived in California. The actual value depends on your weather.
Just can’t see the point. If a grill can’t hold up to the weather it can’t hold up to grilling either.
A guy here in the Twin Cities a few years ago installed a new grill and had a natural gas line run out to it so he didn’t have to worry about running out of propane. It didn’t occur to him to wonder why there was never any snow on it that first winter.
Turns out he left it on all winter.
If he had a cover to put on it, he might have caught it sooner.
So, buy a cover to keep from leaving it on all winter. 
He might have caught it sooner when he saw the cover on fire or melted onto the grill. That’s just another reason not to cover them, and he should have had a shut off valve on the gas line.
I let mine disappear under the snow, but I find it fairly impractical to try and grill if the ambient is less than about 50 degrees. Too much heat loss unless it’s a slow-cook item.
I covered mine those two times in California, during “winter.” Now it just braves the Nwingland winter and cheers me when a corner peeks out of the snowdrifts on the deck.
Me too. I don’t care if it’s -20, I’m still grilling. No grill cover here either. 
Well, no, you’re sort of sterno-candling. 
Bought a grill in '08, and since then have covered it when not in use. I’m pretty sure that’s contributed to the severe rusting of the parts that aren’t stainless steel, e.g. the countertops and undergrill cabinet where the propane tank is stored. I can probably use it for the rest of this season, but next year will be getting a new one. And won’t be covering it.
No for us (but we gave charcoal Weber Kettle grills) and apparently our neighbors don’t use theirs at all either. How do we know this? Because we end UP with most of our neighbors gas grill covers at one point in the summer of every year
The way our complex is situated, the back of a bunch of our places all face a dry retention pond. We are on one end (the Southern end) - the rest are either on the north, west or east end with the decks in back. In the spring, summer and fall, due to how the wind blows through here especially during storms, we tend to get one grill cover every two weeks blown on to our deck or into our yard from one of the neighbors places. At one point last year, we had five of them.
It tuned out to be a great way to meet neighbors - we put signs up on the mailboxes (we have those mailbox clusters) saying that we had a bunch of found grill covers, and to come over and find theirs and rescue them. We laid them out on our front lawn, and had a few beers as people came by. It was kind of fun. I suppose. If you’re the kind of person that likes to meet neighbors. Which I’m not. So I pretty much stayed inside reading. But the husband had a good time.
Anyway, by the time last summer was over and the first frosts pulled in, we had two left (there were probably a total of 7 or 8 that blew over to us the spring/summer/fall season) - one we gave to our favorite bartender at The Alley. The other one is still in the garage. Maybe we’ll get rid of it at the garage sale this weekend (community wide thingy - we do it once a year). I just want it out of the freakin’ garage.
My steaks come out perfect, winter or summer.
Yes I use a grill cover all the time (well, not when cooking on it or waiting for it to cool down). My last Weber grill lasted 15 years, just bought a new one (they’re not as robust, it seems to me).
It might be because my wife bought the cover so I HAVE to use it…
What winter temps do you typically grill in?
I grill steaks and fish unless it’s below 25 F; (below that I’m too uncomfortable) never a complaint. In fact, because we like our steaks rare and our fish just a hair underdone, I like the additional control low ambient a give me.
All of them.