Proper way to keep it up

"Now that I have your attention, Hi folks. I've been a peruser of this site for about a year now and love it. My grill goal is to become the Grillmaster of my family. I want people to get excite about coming to eat at my house.

My question is, referring back to the Subject line, is how to keep the heat up when smoking at lower temps. I use the Char-griller Smoking Pro w/ Side Box and Kingsford regular charcol. To start, I tower about 25-20 briquets and when they ashen over, I spread them out evenly. I then close the side box and main chamber to raise the temp. What i leave open is the side vent and the top "smokestack". Once the temp is around 250 or so, i'll put my ribs in the main chamber and then drop in 4-5 presoaked wood chunks. I see folks say to check every hour but if I wait an hour, i know my fire will be nil. I check my gauge and the temperature will have dropped at least 60-75 degrees in 45 minutes. I've never use lump charcol but do I need to switch? I could probably easily go through 10lbs, if not more, of Kingsford for 1 cookout worth of ribs. Do i need to close 1 or both vents while cooking? And in using that much charcol, oh my gosh, the ash buildup while cooking is ridiculous!!!!! I am constantly shaking and banging (ash is good for the digestive system, right?) just to get it to settle so I can add more charcol!!

But here's the funny thing, everyone says that my ribs, after all of that, turned out superb. I know that if it ain't broke dont fix it but I'm like the ladies that used to go to Barbara Ellen Figure Salon....There's Gotta be a better way!"