Converted a bayou burner from propane to Natural gas

So after reading lots and lots of articles about different methods of getting your banjo/hurricane (I still haven't figured out which is which) burner converted to natural gas, I decided to go with it. I took the least expensive method which is:
1. Cut the regulator off the hose that supplies the fuel to your burner.
2. Get a natural gas ball valve and an appropriate connector (in my case a fip to mip reducer that attached to a barbed fitting) to connect to the hose.
3. Start up your burner and open your vents 50% and see what your flame is doing.
4. Start boring out the hole at the end of the fuel line (the one that delivers fuel to the burner) in small increments, then hook it back up and see what your flame is doing. Once you start getting a yellow flame it is looking for oxygen and you are done. I started with a .063 bit and ended on a .094 (I think, close to it) bit.
There you have it. Less than 20 dollars in parts because I already had a gas grill hooked up in back. I just pull the hose off the grill and put it on the ball valve for the burner. 8 dollar for the ball valve and 8 bucks for both of the brass fittings. Already had the teflon thread dressing.

The goods:


Everything, minus the drill press, that went into this. Quite simple actually:


Thanks for those that helped me out. Hopefully this clears up some questions. I wish I had clear cut instructions like this. If they are out there, I just missed them.

Can you take a picture of what you were boring out I thought about this but never looked into now here is you having done it ha.

DFCARTER said:

Can you take a picture of what you were boring out I thought about this but never looked into now here is you having done it ha.

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You see where the NG hose leads up to the burner? There is a brass fitting that threads into that burner(right through the air vents). That brass fitting is what you bore out.

Sweet, I've been thinking about doing this but as you said I've never seen clear cut directions. A question: What kind of efficiency losses have you noticed when you compare propane to NG, if any (as far as time to boil, energy goes)?

kpr121 said:

Sweet, I've been thinking about doing this but as you said I've never seen clear cut directions. A question: What kind of efficiency losses have you noticed when you compare propane to NG, if any (as far as time to boil, energy goes)?

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I have never seen any really scientific information on how much hotter propane is than NG. Propane has more energy, will be hotter, and will be more expensive. How much hotter is it? I don't know. I haven't done any boils with this yet but I can tell from the flame that I will not have any trouble getting to a boil.

Basically: NG isn't as hot, but it ain't a big deal

Cool. I mean hot. Thanks for the post man, I really appreciate it. I was very hesitant about converting to NG because I never saw anyone convert my specific burner (SP10?). This is going to be my project this winter (along with some venting) since I have a line run to the garage already!

Well done, I know quite a lot about burners, so I can elaborate on some of what you said to help others reproduce this project:
First off Propane vs NG: Propane is denser (It has a gravity of something like 1.52 when compared to air), and has a lot more energy that NG.

Most propane systems run at 11" WC (water column inches, equivalent to a little less that 1 PSI). This is different than what you NG is at. If you are planning to do a swap look at the pressure regulator; it should say "11 WC" or "Low pressure" or "LP" (not to be confused with "LPG" which means liquid petroleum gas a.k.a propane). You should also know the pressure your NG is at, this will be printed on the big regulator next to your gas meter (it will be 4" WC or 8" WC.
If your burner has a variable regulator, or one that runs at a higher pressure, you could still do a swap, but I would recommend not to, as you will not have as good of a flame control after the swap.

So if your trying to get a the same heat out of the burner as you did with propane burner look at this chart.
The orifice is the hole that lets gas out into the burner. If you know the BTU rating you can look up the proper size to drill it out to on the chart. The orifice is the tricky part of this project, if you have a mechanist friend start there, if not, hopefully you have done some drilling before. If you don't know the BTU's your shooting for, do it little by little.

These burner are given O2 from a venturi, if you don't know what that is read up (you should understand the basic concept, you don't need to know the physics calculations). Some venturis have an adjustment, other don't, so look at your burner.
Also read up on oxidizing, neutral, and reducing flames, so you know how to adjust your venturi once you have it running.

Every gas line connection should be tested for leaks, to do this mix some soap and water and wet all connection points. If there is a pin hole leak you will see bubbles: turn off the gas and fix it.

Just the kind of info I was looking for

Me too !

Looks great! I think this may work well for me too. I'm gonna break into the hot water heater / furnace supply line in my basement and tee off with black pipe then transition to rubber hose to get it outside. It's post like these that keep the fire departments and emergency rooms in bidness!

If anyone ever gets around to doing this. I'd love to see a video of the entire process, explaining and pointing everything out, step by step.

Does anyone know which bayou classic burner that is?