Well I just wanted to smoke some chicken breast for dinner tonight and my MES quit shortly after I put them in. I am fairly certain it is the heating element connection as I probably have been living on borrowed time with it. Since I need to take it apart to repair I am thinking maybe switching to natural gas. I have a control and igniter from a natural gas water heater. I would like to hook that up to the electronics of my MES to fire the burner on and off as heat is needed. Anybody have an experience with doing this or does everyone just light the burner and adjust a manual valve?