How To Convert A Propane Grill To Natural Gas Step
This is the guide you need for liquid propane to natural gas grill conversion. Learn what to consider before you start, two videos showing how to convert the most popular grill brands, and a step-by-step written guide to help make the conversion easy and seamless.
Today Im going to show you exactly how to convert a propane grill to natural gas. Ill be covering the same process the professionals use and include two videos showing step-by-step propane to natural gas grill conversions for two major brands of grills.
Although it may seem daunting, converting from propane to natural gas is actually a straightforward process. But there are some things you need to be aware of and consider to make sure it goes smoothly and safely. We cover it all in this guide.
Lets dive right in.
Key Takeaways for Converting from Propane to Natural Gas
- You must make sure you have a mains gas supply, or can get one, before you start.
- Make sure your grill is convertible not all are!
- An official kit from your grills manufacturer is recommended to convert from propane to natural gas.
- The work itself is easy to follow. You should be capable, just follow the videos below.
- If youre not confident, many plumbers and gas companies can make the conversion for you.
Contents
Fitting The Kit And Connecting The Grill
Mark Jenner
Do You Need An Orifice For Natural Gas
You cannot operate a gas grill without an orifice. The orifice hole size determines the BTU rating and the gas type of the grill.
What is orifice size?
The orifice diameter is the internal opening of the valve and is used to calculate the flow capacity of the valve. Metric or English makes no difference. Its the inside hole. The inlet size is the interface or the size/type of the threads where you attach the valve.
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Does Natural Gas Have A Bigger Orifice Than Propane
The reason for this is because natural gas orifices are larger than propane orifices strictly because of gas service pressure. In this case, the higher pressure gas flowing through a larger orifice will result in more gas through the burner and likely, more flamean unnecessarily large flame.
Can a propane fire pit be converted to natural gas?
Most propane fire pits can be converted to use natural gas as a fuel instead of propane. However, there are some types of fire pits where it is impossible to do the conversion, but the manufacturer will have this noted in the instructions for the fire pit.
How To Change The Gas Orifices At Cooktop Burners To Convert Between Natural Gas & Lp Gas
Watch out: Most manufacturers require that installation and fuel conversions shall be performed by a trained and qualified service technician. The technician should be sure to correctly identify the model number of your gas appliance so that s/he can follow the correct details of the manufacturer’s instructions.
For most gas cooktops a threaded brass orifice or “spud” is used to meter gas at the proper flow rate at each burner. Gas flow rate, a combination of supply pressure and orifice diameter, determines the quantity of gas available at the individual burner and thus sets its BTU output rate or range.
The orifice diameter of these tiny little parts is different between natural gas and propane or LP gas. This means that you will need to change the orifice fittings to match the fuel you intend to use.
When converting an appliance from using a lower pressure natural gas fuel supply to a higher pressure LP or propane gas fuel supply, the new orifices will be smaller in diameter to accommodate the higher pressure of the fuel supply without releasing too much fuel too quickly.
Watch out: Converting a gas appliance is dangerous if not done correctly and in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions. Here are two typical manufacturer’s gas conversion kit warning notices
This conversion kit shall be installed by a qualified service agency in accordance with the manufacturers instructions and all applicable codes and requirements of the authority having jurisdiction.
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What Is The Difference Between A Natural Gas Orifice And A Propane Orifice
Natural gas orifices are bigger in diameter than propane orifices, owing to the higher gas service pressure. Because of the lower pressure gas and the narrower orifice, attempting to use a propane device with natural gas would most likely result in a very small flame or even no burner flame due to the lower pressure gas.
Are You Sure You Want To Convert To Natural Gas A Recap Of The Benefits
Aside from never running out of fuel mid-grill, natural gas grills come with many other benefits over propane:
- Lower energy costs NG is more economical.
- Better for the environment NG is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel.
- Convenience no need to schedule deliveries or pick up new and return empty canisters.
- Natural gas piped straight to the grill is safer and easier with no more canisters.
- Some would say the taste is better too.
Need more details and persuasion? Be sure to check out our Propane Vs. Natural Gas Grill comparison guide.Are you already decided?
Well, read on to find out the main things to consider before you start the conversion work, and more importantly, exactly how to do it!
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Can You Convert Any Propane Grill To Natural Gas
Basically, no. Many grills are capable, and you can purchase kits to make the change. Also, many forums and YouTube videos show how to convert grills that supposedly cannot be. However, these are unofficial hacks, void any warranty you have, and in case of a fire would almost definitely invalidate any insurance you have.
If you have a grill that cannot be converted but are sure you want to cook with natural gas, check out our guide to the best NG grills.
Remove Aluminum Burner Base If Needed To Pass The Nut Driver Into The Cooktop
Watch out: Hah! While it was an important improvement to buy a nut driver that fits the spuds, the new nut driver didn’t fit into the cooktop burner openings either.
That’s why we needed a metric hex key set – to remove the machined aluminum burner base to provide a larger access opening to retrieve the installed gas orifice and to install the new orifice needed when changing from the factory natural gas set-up to a propane set-up.
Use the hex key, working with care not to strip the insert opening in the screw tops, and remove the two sheet metal screws holding the burner base in place on the cooktop surface. Put the screws into a bowl or other container since if you lose them you’ll be making another trip to the hardware store.
At below left you can see my metric hex key, the sheet metal screw, and the gas burner base after it was removed. I took care not to drop any shards of aluminum or any other crud down into the cooktop opening.
Set the gas burner base aside and enjoy peering down into the now-exposed and sufficiently-large opening where you can see the existing gas metering spud or orifice in the cooktop . Below is the gas burner base set aside.
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Remove The Control Panel
This step will depend on your grills design. If your grills burners run into the control panel as per the image below then you will need to control panel to give you full access to your grills valve tubes in order to remove them for conversion.
If your grills valve tube and burner connection sits directly under the cooking grates then you will not need to remove the control panel, and can skip this step.
Remove the control panel on your grill. In the case of most propane grills, like the Weber Spirit, this can be lifted and removed quite easily. Removing this should expose the control valves. With the valves exposed, find the gas line that connects the manifold to the valves.
The tip of the control valve is inserted into the burner. The front of the burner is where the air adjustment acts like a carburetor mixing gas with oxygen as the valve sprays gas mixed with air into the Weber pipe burner.
We are going to need to slide the burner off the valve so we can access the orifice. In order to slide the burner off the control valve we have two options. However, the condition of the barbecue will usually choose one of these options for us. If not you are lucky but the build up of grease and the breakdown of materials usually decides this for us.
Barbecue Grills Designed For Natural Gas
If you want to burn natural gas in your barbecue grill, the best strategy is simply to buy a grill that is designed to use this fuel. Such appliances will simply be labeled “natural gas grill” rather than “liquid propane grill.” Virtually all major grill manufacturers offer grills with special valves and burners designed to use natural gas, although you may need to special-order them. Because natural gas burns slightly cooler than propane, natural gas grills have valves and burner orifices that are slightly larger to allow for a larger volume of gas to flow. A grill with propane valves should never be used to burn natural gas unless an approved conversion has been performed.
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Why Should You Convert To Natural Gas
Converting to natural gas ensures that you always have a constant supply of gas without the need to constantly be restocking on propane tanks and propane tank gauges.
This does present challenges in manoeuvrability however, as your grill be essentially fixed to the area immediately around your natural gas supply. So if you like to take your grill camping or tailgating then converting to natural gas wont be a practical course of action.
However if you only only tend to grill at home and are keen to save money on propane costs, then converting to natural gas is certainly something to consider.
The most important tool youll need for converting your propane grill to natural gas is a conversion kit. This is essentially a hose with brass fittings on either ends which can connect your propane grill to your natural gas pipe. The fitting for your grills manifold will however be specific to your brand, so be sure to buy one that is compatible with your gas grill.
Install your chosen conversion kit in line with the kits owners manual.
Here are some examples of brand or model-specific conversion kits that should work with your grill:
- Tap directly into your natural gas supply and convert a propane gas grill…
- Perfect for hooking up the grill, fire pit, pizza oven, patio heater, and…
- Made of 100% solid brass fittings and sturdy rubber hose, provides a secure…
Natural Gas Orifice Size Chart
Last Updated on 13/03/2022 by Mitchel Shawn
Theres no doubt that orifice size matters a lot in natural gas cause it gives you more control over water flow. Thats why choosing the right size of the orifice is so important.
However, the wide range of orifice sizes may confuse you a lot. But to clear out all your confusion regarding orifice size, weve discussed the Natural Gas Orifice Size Chart in this article.
So without further ado, lets get started.
Contents
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Converting To Natural Gas
There is any number of videos and instructional articles available that discuss boring out propane valves and burners on a grill to make them suitable for burning natural gas as the fuel. Although this is occasionally successful, it can also be disastrously dangerous. A better strategy is to buy a conversion kit designed for your grill. For less than $100 , you may be able to replace the valves and burners on a propane grill and adapt it to burning natural gas.
However, these conversion kits are often after-market products made by third-party manufacturers, and some grill manufacturers expressly warn against conversion. Weber, for example, expressly forbids conversion and will void the warranty on the grill if you use a third-party conversion kitalthough many grill owners do successfully complete such conversions. Charbroil, on the other hand, offers their own conversion kits and provides instruction on how to convert a grill from propane to natural gas.
Select The Proper Gas Orifice Or Spud According To The Manufacturer’s Specifications
Our example Bosch gas cooktop, the same unit whose regulator we converted earlier, came factory-set with orifices installed for natural gas. The manufacturer includes a set of brass orifice fittings that must be used when converting the cooktop from natural gas to LP or propane fuel.
A typical gas appliance spud or orifice will be marked with
- A letter: L or N
- A number: indicating the orifice opening diameter.
Watch out: it’s darn hard to read the tiny numbers and letters stamped onto these parts. You’ll want a magnifying glass, or as we used for the photos below, a stereo microscope. It is critical to properly identify the orifice size for each of these otherwise identical-looking parts and to use the correct orifice at each burner.
Why? Because burner sizes vary and must be matched to the orifice. The manufacturer gives a clue for old blind guys like me by putting a dab of colored paint on the orifices :
our #95 had a dab of green paint and our #109 had a dab of black. But the paint may be gone or not noticeable.
… … …
Watch out: don’t lose any of these little beggars or your installation will stop dead until you can obtain a replacement from the manufacturer. It’s easy to drop one and lose it, including down into the range top. The manufacturer has some suggestions about that that we’ll get to soon.
I used the thank-you notes from three of my grandchildren as handy cards to tape down the orifice fittings and to label them for use.
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How To Convert Gas Appliance Spuds Or Orifices From Lp To Natural Gas Or From Natural Gas To Propane
- about gas fuel conversions: LP or “bottled gas” to piped-in natural gas service
InspectAPedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. We have no relationship with advertisers, products, or services discussed at this website.
LP to Natural Gas appliance orifice or spud conversions or Natural Gas to LP fuel conversion procedures.
How to remove the old and install the new properly-sized gas metering orifices or “gas spuds” at a gas fired appliance when converting between natural gas and propane or LPG.
This article series explains the procedure for converting from LP gas or “bottled gas” to natural gas or “piped in gas” at a building.
Watch out: gas appliance adjustments are needed not just when changing between LP or propane and natural gas but also at high altitudes. When using a natural gas or propane-burning appliance of any type at higher altitudes, adjustments to the gas burner’s metering orifices, regulator, combustion air, and even venting will usually be needed for safe use.
We also provide an ARTICLE INDEX for this topic, or you can try the page top or bottom SEARCH BOX as a quick way to find information you need.
What Does Orifice Size Mean
The operating pressure of your machine is determined by the size of the aperture of the nozzle. As a general rule, the smaller the orifice, the greater the water flow restriction through the machine.
Choosing a nozzle with an aperture that is too tiny may restrict water flow and may cause the machine to work harder than its designed to.
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Converting From Propane To Natural Gas For Outdoor Grilling
Andy Arthur / Flickr / CC BY-3.0
Gas-burning appliances, including outdoor barbecue grills, gas fireplaces, and patio space heaters, are designed to burn one of two different types of fuel. The majority of grills and outdoor appliances are designed to burn liquid propane fuelthe fuel that comes in tanks or bottles that you periodically must refill or replace. But homeowners increasingly are turning to outdoor appliances that burn the same natural gas that serves the indoor gas appliancesmostly because natural gas is a more plentiful, cheaper fuel. For a family that grills frequently, the cost savings can total hundreds of dollars each year. And because natural gas appliances can usually be tapped into the home’s natural gas lines, it eliminates the need for cumbersome tanks that always seem to run empty just when you’re grilling a big meal.
