Natural gas questions

So I have two hurricane burners I want to hook up to NG. I have a ball valve in my basement right after the main with nothing on it. The valve is 1/2" attached to a reducing tee in the main. So I ran about 30 ft of 1/2" BIP from the ball valve to the back of my house and attached another ball valve. I bought a grill conversion kit that has the 3/8" NG hose with QD's. Hooked that up to the 1/2" BIP manifold on my stand. Then each burner is attached to 3/8" NG flex line used for appliances. The burners also have the NG conversion orifice sold by williamsbrewing.com.

Now after firing it up last night, I was very disappointed by the output, took about an hour to heat 5 gallons of water from 45 to 195. So my question is what can I do to get more power out of the burners?

My first thought is to replace that 10' 3/8 NG hose with some 1/2" hose. I'm going to do that today. I'm also thinking of replacing the 3/8" flex line with 1/2" but I was unable to find a 1/2" flex hose that would connect to the 3/8" orifice. What does everyone else who uses the yellow flex lines use?

The guy at Home Depot said that the 1/2" BIP isn't supplying enough gas and I need to run 3/4". I can easily return most of the 1/2" BIP but unfortunately that valve I mentioned earlier on my main line 1/2" and the only way to replace is it, is to shut off the gas before the meter because I have no other shut offs before that. The gas company told me they have to turn the gas on and off and will charge me for the visit. I have no problem doing the work myself and replacing the ball valve with a 3/4", but they also told me I could be charged with tampering and/or possibly damage the diaphragm in the meter if I do it myself. Has anyone heard that before? Or are they yanking my chain.

Thanks
Jeremy

If they say they can charge, they can. And will.

And yeah, you'll have to up the supply/ I run 1/2" all the way to my rig (3 Hurricane) then it chokes down to 3/8" for the last couple feet. Can boil 15 gallons in 20 minutes. I have 4 psi in the lines.

GilaMinumBeer said:

If they say they can charge, they can. And will.

And yeah, you'll have to up the supply/ I run 1/2" all the way to my rig (3 Hurricane) then it chokes down to 3/8" for the last couple feet. Can boil 15 gallons in 20 minutes. I have 4 psi in the lines.

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Thanks, yeah its only $50, and I'll probably end up paying it but would rather not if I don't have to since the ball valve and tee would only cost $10.

How far of a run is your 1/2" supply before it gets reduced down?

jrkettle said:

Thanks, yeah its only $50, and I'll probably end up paying it but would rather not if I don't have to since the ball valve and tee would only cost $10.

How far of a run is your 1/2" supply before it gets reduced down?

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15 foot long.