natural gas lines.

i've got the hurrican burners with natural gas valves from NB. I have the nat gas piped to my stand with 1/2 in pipe. my question is what kind of piping do you use to go from the black pipe manifold to the natural gas valve. the guy at the plumbing supply store said to use copper. Is this OK? Or what does anyone suggest? plus i'm setting this up in my basement, are there any codes i should be worried about and how can i find out?

thanks,
everyone is usually very helpful.

Is this a permanent mount or a potentially portable?

For permanent, anything you'll need can be had at the big box store near the water heaters.

For portable (meaning it moves to store) high pressure propane hose can't be beat for durability.

Stubbs5150 said:

i've got the hurrican burners with natural gas valves from NB. I have the nat gas piped to my stand with 1/2 in pipe. my question is what kind of piping do you use to go from the black pipe manifold to the natural gas valve. the guy at the plumbing supply store said to use copper. Is this OK? Or what does anyone suggest? plus i'm setting this up in my basement, are there any codes i should be worried about and how can i find out?

thanks,
everyone is usually very helpful.

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No copper. I'd go with a flex line used in hooking up appliances unless it is going to be 'hard plumbed' then go with black pipe.

Sulfur will degrade copper over time, or so I'm told. Also, it is not a suitable replacement for flex pipe. I did appliance repair for a large company and we wouldn't touch gas appliances hooked to copper for liability reasons.

Yeah, I talked with a So Cal Gas guy and he said the same - Copper and NG dont go well with each other..

I've had soft copper running under ground to my NG grill for 15 years with no problems. Replaced it in the spring worried about it and it didn't look comprimised in any way.

+1 no copper

I used the yellow flex lines from Brasscraft http://www.brasscraft.com/Products.aspx?Id=211 , bought that at HomeDepot - these are not my ideal solution but they are what I did for now. Eventually I would like to hard plumb them in with either black pipe or stainless.

As for code issues - if in fact code covers this kind of set up, I would venture to say that most of us are violating a boat load of rules. Having it in your basement most likely requires strict ventilation & make up air requirements. I wanted to put a wood burning oven in my kitchen and the ventilation alone would have been $5,000 just for the insulated triple walled exhaust pipes. Never got as far as pricing the make up air set up.

+1 SAMC. Its going to be expensive to get it to code. Go to the engineering office at your local town hall for codes.

thanks,
i didn't think the copper was the best idea. i'm going to look into the flex line from home depot. thanks. the previous owner of my house had a nat gas stove in the basement. whats the difference other than the obvious btu's?
oh, and do i try to hook the flex line to the valves from northern brewer or try to connect them directly to the burner?

I actually have soft copper supplying my water heater, furnace, and garage heater.....to code. Either K type or L type is OK for NG, (but only one of those, I'd google it at a minimum). Soft copper is, however, a PITA to work with. I say use black pipe to get close, then flexible hose as others have suggested.

no gavanized either. nat gas and lp strip the zinc. socal gas uses poleethylene for the service main. 4' 1/2" flex lines for dryers is your best bet. it is rated for ~150k btus. 4' 3/8" is rated something like 90k.

I would suggest you build the manifold from black pipe and make the connection from the shut off valve on the manifold to burner valve with the flex connector. If you are not equiped with the benders and flaring tools for copper it would be safer to go the flex route. Use a teflon thread paste or permatex#2 for the threaded joints, teflon tape has a bad habit of getting into places it does not belong and causing grief. If you use permatex aquire some rubbing alcohol to remove it as I can almost guarantee you will be wearing some of it before your done. As in all gas system builds the soap bubble test of all connections with system pressurized with air is highly advised before introducing gas to the system. The soap bubble solution for children works the best that I have found as it has glycerin added to soap solution to lengthen the bubble life, and the price is lower than the alternative commercial test solutions.

Stubbs5150 said:

thanks,
i didn't think the copper was the best idea. i'm going to look into the flex line from home depot. thanks. the previous owner of my house had a nat gas stove in the basement. whats the difference other than the obvious btu's?
oh, and do i try to hook the flex line to the valves from northern brewer or try to connect them directly to the burner?

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Ranges are designed to burn very cleanly and have little carbon monoxide. I won't say anything without knowing if your unit is designed to run indoors, but small enclosed space is a problem with ANY unvented gas appliance. As long as it burns clean you probably don't have much to worry about if the space is large enough, but if you feel sleepy stop, open a window, etc....

you know, lp lift trucks are the only osha approved indoors vehicle. yet lp burners that combust far less are not. what gives? combustion is cleaner on a burner than an old lift. i had never ran one that didn't make me gag if the shop door is down.

LP Fork lifts don't create much Carbon Monoxide, were as burners are notorious for it. i remember talking to the mechanic about it that came to our shop for a tuneup on our LP forklift.

thanks everyone. i've got a vent hood with a fan for ventilation with windows open plus a carbon monoxide alarm. the flex line looks like my best bet. the one piece i'm having difficulty with is attaching the nat gas valve from northern brewer to the flex line. is there another piece i could use to attatch the flex line to the burner? the valve is a flare piece for copper according to the plumbing supply guy.

The smaller flex lines for water heaters have flared ends and NPT X Flare adapters attached. The pictures in the websites show the assembled connector and do not mention flare joints, just lose the NPT adapter for the burner connection and it should fit. If you are not sure of sizes take the NB valve with you to HD, unscrew the flex line NPT adapter and try the flex gas connector flare end on the valve to make sure.

Stubbs5150 said:

thanks everyone. i've got a vent hood with a fan for ventilation with windows open plus a carbon monoxide alarm. the flex line looks like my best bet. the one piece i'm having difficulty with is attaching the nat gas valve from northern brewer to the flex line. is there another piece i could use to attatch the flex line to the burner? the valve is a flare piece for copper according to the plumbing supply guy.

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Some, especially cheap, CO detectors give false positives because they are cumulative. Every trace it ever sees, it remembers. Don't ignore it if it goes off, but don't panic if no one exhibits any symptoms of CO poisoning either. Headaches, dizziness, sleepy, etc....

You sound like you are set to rock and brew just fine though. Please keep us updated.

went to home depot today and the flex lines work. thanks for all your help. now the banjo/hurricane flame is pretty small. any tips on how to improve the burn of these kinds of burners with natural gas?
should be brewing by thanksgiving. thanks again

It sounds like the jet opening is too small, here is a chart for drill sizes for NG applications http://www.joppaglass.com/burner/lowp_chrt.html. From the chart the 9/64" drill bit should get you close, if that is not enough and the air shutter is not full open you can step up one size at a time and retest until air shutter is all the way open to burn clean. I would suggest that you stop when the air shutter is 90% open so you can tune for cold/ higher density air conditions later.

thanks for all of the tips. just brewed for the first time in the basement. had my homemade vent hood going with basement windows open, plus a fan in one window.....the carbon monoxide detector didnt even blip....and the smell of brewing was minimal upstairs (or minimal enough where the wife wasn't complaining. so thanks again to everyone.

I'm curious how you liked the Hurricane for brewing with NG? I'm thinking of getting one to brew outdoors and I'd like the be able to do 10 gallon batches.

so far so good, i think outdoors you would need a wind screen or whatever. the one thing i had to do was drill out the orifice of the valves. even the ones specifically for ng from nb. now i've only done one 5 gallon batch at this point and don't know how long it would take to boil 10.

Do you by chance remember what drill size you used for the orifice? I will probably get the burner from NB too along with their valve. How long did it take for your to boil 6.5 gallons?

take the orifice that comes with the hurricane burner and drill out those. don't waste your money on a valve from nb that you have to drill out anyway. can't tell you what size drill bit, i just used the smallest one i had that made the orifice just a bit bigger. and the drill bit doesn't have a size printed on it. but i'm sure there is info on this board for orifice sizes. took about 45 minutes to boil 6.5 gallons.

Stubbs5150 said:

take the orifice that comes with the hurricane burner and drill out those. don't waste your money on a valve from nb that you have to drill out anyway. can't tell you what size drill bit, i just used the smallest one i had that made the orifice just a bit bigger. and the drill bit doesn't have a size printed on it. but i'm sure there is info on this board for orifice sizes. took about 45 minutes to boil 6.5 gallons.

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I think I read someone called Hurricane and they recommended a size. 1/8 inch comes to mind but don't quote me. I'd check. Info is in a thread on here somewhere.