Natural Gas Plumbing Connundrum....

[hnbc34]

I recently decided to switch out my burners from LP to NG orifices. I already plumbed a stub out because I got an NG grill. Just switching over the Quick connects from to another has been great as the weather has been great, but I am in New England and that can quickly change.
I have a detached garage that is about 20ish feet away that I had been brewing in during the winters. Here is my issue: is it ok to go from the 3/8 flex hose back to 1/2 black pipe and not loose too much?
My thought is to just put a nipple and connect both my flex hoses to give me 20 or so feet and use a quick connect on both sides to secure them. This will then go to the 1/2 Black Pipe as I can not find significant lengths of 3/8. Are there any concerns I should be aware of with this? This is obviously a brew day only application and the hose will be put away after. Thank you all in advance!

 

[Robusto]

Short answer is it probably will work, but won't work well...

Long answer is “it depends”. What is the pressure or your NG service and how many BTU’s is your burner?

I used to be a plumber and working from a rusty memory, 1 cubic foot/hour of NG = 1000 BUT’s (aprox). The carrying capacity of ½” black pipe would be about 85 CFH at 20 feet. 3/8 is only going to be about two thirds to half of that depending on pressure… so really long answer- you should have about 25k-35k BUT’s worth of NG (rough estimate) at your burner.

Your burner is most likely more that that. You may want to try to find a full ½” hose, or run a ½” line underground (sleeved in PVC). Full 1/2 “ black pipe would give you about 85K BTU’s or if you used soft copper, you would have 55K.

 

[Robusto]

Here you go:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007VAXQYY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[hnbc34]

Robusto-
That is exactly what I am using. Was doing to piggy back the two I have together.

 

[Robusto]

Are your hoses 1/2" with 3/8" fittings, or are the hoses 3/8"? If they are 1/2", you should be good to go.

 

[hnbc34]

the hoses are the 3/8 ones that you linked to. Probably just easier to just buy another one and add it to the chain. It is 1/2 all the way out to the stub out though.

 

[Bobby_M]

I think you're going to have some volume issues. Your grill is probably 40kBTU with everything on full blast. I'm guessing you want more than that for your brewing. I had issues running more than one burner fed from 20 feet of 1/2" black pipe. A brew stand should really be fed with 3/4" ID minimum if you run more than one burner.

 

[hnbc34]

I am beginning to think the same thing for the volume. Haven't had an issue running both right at the source. Guess I can get away just using one burner in the winter. It will only slow the day down a tiny bit. Worst case, just run one on LP and the other on NG.