Hi , I don't think the Safers will hurt the Ludisia leaves I am sure mine has had a Safers spray when I was in hot pursuit of fungus knats . I had a battle with mealy bugs in my other green house miserable little creeps . Gin

We had a black Genesis for 11-12 years. The grates needed replacement maybe every 5-6 years -- and that was not using a cover or taking exceptional care of them in humid Gulf Coast weather. Not a big deal, and the box itself was solid as ever. They make a good grill. It is tempting when you see larger grills for half the price, but lift the lid and look at the build and weight -- you'll get less than half the life out of it. About a month ago, we discovered the burners were in need of replacement. We could have replaced them -- I am starting to think you can keep a Weber working for a lifetime if you are willing to replace parts occasionally. But we had already decided that it was time to get a new grill and would not do more repairs. We bought a new one - -in part to get a larger one now that the boys are teens and have teen boy friends (we need to cook more burgers than before ;-) ). Our new one cooks front to back, which is good for when we are only doing something smaller like burgers for the 4 of us, but we never had an issue with the side to side. Both can work well. Hope that helps.

Steve - I've been spinning on the same question over the last few months. The Bluestar grill doesn't look hot enough. My old weber charcoal grill was hot enough, but my new gas (non-IR) grill is not. Is Capital's (the other range brand I'm considering) IR grill hot enough? In researching on google I found a youtube clip of a guy's sure-fire steak grilling method using an IR grill. First he sears it on a very hot IR grill for short time to produce grill lines, then transfers it to a cast iron skillet for the real searing to produce that desired crust, then he puts the skillet in the oven to finish cooking to the desired done-ness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shI5C4GdGwM So now I'm figuring- if I'm only using the IR grill for cosmetic purposes and the best sear/crust comes from the cast iron skillet, why bother with the grill? So I've been doing pan-seared steaks lately and getting great results. And now I'm thinking if I get a range with a grill, it will be for other uses besides steak. Dogs & brats in January? Grilled veggies? Grilled fish & chicken? Those sound nice but they are a distant second on the priority list behind cooking a great steak, so perhaps I'll just go with the all-burner range and get a good 2-burner cast iron griddle. Sorry I can't answer your original question. I get the impression that IR grills (whether on a kitchen range or in an outdoor bbq) are hotter than a mid-range conventional gas grill. Hot enough to put a good crust on a steak while leaving it rare or medium rare inside like charcoal? Don't know.

Thanks, Ocotillo, for sharing this profoundly moving message. Smiling, here, wiping away a tiny tear of gratitude. Thank you.