Plumbing burner to house (Grill) propane supply

Hello, looking to get a propane burner, but rather than run off a tank I'd like to plumed directly to my house supply. My BBQ is already plumbed through a regulator (unknown flow rate).

Any experience? Better to hard pipe directly to regulator that burner comes with or rely on my extant regulator? With some work I could probably discover what rate it flows.

Thanks!

It's just a burner that you will be using outside. Hook it up and go. Flow rate will not matter as I am guessing that you have a knob on yours to turn the flame higher or lower. The regulators on a propane tank or going to your grill are going to be the same or so close to the same it doesn't matter which you use.

^agreed.

I use a burner that is attached to my BBQ set up. It is plumbed to house NG service.

I would just hook yours up and go.

Remember that the jetting for a propane burner is different than for a natural gas one. Make sure your burner is a NG burner, or that you can re-jet it.

arent the propane burners we use set up to run on Hi pressure where as BBQ grills and homes that use propane operate at low pressure?

someone please correct me if i am wrong. I believe this will not work without some sort of modification for propane.

Atl300zx said:

arent the propane burners we use set up to run on Hi pressure where as BBQ grills and homes that use propane operate at low pressure?

someone please correct me if i am wrong. I believe this will not work without some sort of modification for propane.

Click to expand...

Not neccessarily. There are manufacturers that make low pressure propane burners. This propane burner from Blichmann is a low pressure propane burner and there are other manufacturers that make low pressure propane burners also.

I will be doing the same thing and from what my contractor buddy and the propane folks have told me:
1) make sure your burner is equipped for propane, if you have used it on a propane tank before no big deal. it will have the correct jet or orifice installed.
2) it really doesn't matter what propane tank you hook it up to, a common 20lb "blue rhino" tank or your home bulk tank that you have hooked up to your BBQ. the regulator is what sets the pressure for your burner.
3) hook it up and try it, you may need to adjust your air intake, most propane burners have some kind of adjustment. if that doesn't work you will need to see what your current regulator is rated at, bring it to an RV shop or your propane supplier and buy and adjustable regulator that will work for both your BBQ and the burner

Hope this helps

so you guys are saying that you can just disconnect it from the propane, hook it up to a natural gas source (my house) and it will work just the same?! If so... i will be doing this asap! screw buying propane tanks lol

NNatic said:

so you guys are saying that you can just disconnect it from the propane, hook it up to a natural gas source (my house) and it will work just the same?! If so... i will be doing this asap! screw buying propane tanks lol

Click to expand...

NO, not at all. It will not be the same. The orifice is wrong.

Propane is completely different WC (Water Column), which is the pressure that gas is measured from. Not only that, but LP and NG have completely different burn rates.

However.... do NOT think that running a simple burner or grill designed for one type of gas will be dangerous running on the other type of gas. There is no danger when running something so simple as the only issue would be your burn efficiency and flame temperature.


I know this info because I actually am a food equipment service provider and do these kind of things every day. Our workshop only has LP and when we get a NG piece of equipment we run it on LP anyway just to test the equipment. We can not calibrate thermostats or set the WC because they are different but it works well for test purposes.

But I will mention that you may see some 2 foot flames at times.

I will mention that you can buy a couple dollar orifice and $20 regulator and you will be all set. It is just a matter of figuring out which orifice to use. In that case you will need to know a few things to get the right one.

I guess the OP was not specific about what type of gas the house supply was on. I made the assumption of LP burner and LP supply.

But if it were me I would use the LP burner on my NG supply once I changed the regulator. The flame would be completely unpredictable at first but it would still work for the simple purpose of boiling wort. If it were my grill I would never use the wrong gas.

Yeah - the OP - ME. Lives in the sticks and there's no such thing as "City Gas" here - just a 500 gallon LP tank buried in the front yard.

As I understand from some of the previous posts - house supply LP is "low Pressure"? So I need to get a burner set up for Low pressure? I was looking at the SP10 or SP14 from Bayou and I think both are low pressure.

Thanks for all the replies.