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The house we bought in Nov 2014 was plumbed in for LP gas. There is a 500 gal tank outside with a regulator connected to a 1" supply to the house. Once at the house there looks like what would be another regulator the in-ground pipe connects to, just before it enters the house. In the crawlspace the piping is done with the Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing (CSST) The 1" line in the crawlspace is branched off with 3/4" lines that feed to a fireplace on the first floor, but is capped off. It feeds the Rinnai Tankless heater on another 3/4" branch. Another two 3/4" branches feed the oven and a gas fireplace on the second floor. The last one, also 3/4" is brought up into the outside wall and turned out to supply, at the time, a future BBQ grill, or so I presumed.

Any ways, I set out to complete the hook up. There is the typical red handled valve on the end of the line on the outside of the wall. It is fitted with 1/2" IPS threads to fit it to the CSST in the wall with the proper adaptors I also presume. It was capped with a plug which I removed, brushed out the dried pipe dope and fastened a Flame King connector with Teflon tape on the treads. Valve

Before I did the install, I removed the connector with the black hand nut and set it aside for use on the generator. That left the remaining part, after it was installed on the line, for the part that goes to the LP tank on the BBQ to hook right up to the in-house propane, which I did.

When I turned on the red handled valve that charged the line to the newly installed connector to the BBQ, I did not see the indicator gauge move a speck. I did hear the regulator on the BBQ make the soft click when the line is pressurized, so I turned on a burner, which did fire up. Turning on the other 3 burners reduced the flame on the first one as each one turned on. Just as a mention, the one burner, while it was the only one on, did not seem all that spectacular, even less so with the other burners working. The needle on the gauge has still not budged, still below the empty mark.

So I moved onto the generator I wanted to adapt to this too. I took off the old school connector and installed the new part with the black nut with the Teflon tape. The install was a snap. Brought the generator over to the outside connector that I just tried the BBQ on and tightened the connector. I did test ALL connections/threads with soapy water in a spray bottle. No leaks anywhere. I attempted to start the generator, a Honda 6500 watt twin cylinder 17 hp motor converted to run on LP gas, that ran great on the little tank I had. It would only fire intermittently when I had the choke out. As a note the BBQ and generator, also have regulators too.

I know I am not getting enough propane to the engine, and perhaps the BBQ when it is hooked up. With everything else working fine in the house, what is the issue with the 2 items I am trying to hook up? Are all the regulators choking the flow? I figure the gauge would show something after it had a chance to build up, but there is nothing. Still showing below empty. I am going to guess the gauge only shows pressure on the non regulated side, so it is moot to even have it, but I could not find one without it, oh well. To reaffirm the question, why am I not getting enough pressure through? My gas oven, or at least ones I helped install on jobsites have there own regulators too, but the ovens and cooktops worked fine.....

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  • This can often be a function of the temperature and fullness of the tank. Do you know the fill level of the tank? Also, I know a lot of regulators for home use are for LNG, rather than propane; have you confirmed you have all LP regulators? Aug 13, 2015 at 11:51
  • @BrownRedHawk, Yes it it all LP. The 500 gal tank is at 35% full. Both the BBQ and generator worked swimmingly on the small propane tank I got at the big box stores.
    – Jack
    Aug 13, 2015 at 19:26
  • Although this is not a hard answer, the only thing I can think of is that maybe due to the tank being under 50% full, and there may be a significant elevation change, the effective service flow is not sufficient for all the accessories. I lived at a place with a buried 500gal tank, and I noticed a weaker flame any time we were under 50% full. Maybe yours is just even more noticeable. Aug 13, 2015 at 19:56
  • Maybe so, at 35% it is getting due for a fill up. I was waiting for the cold season to start since the house is new to us and I wanted to see how each fill up lasted. This fill up from the spring will last us up till heating season starts. The house is a 2007 build in WA state Another possibility, while cleaning the old pipe dope out of the fittings, is it possible that a small spec of crap got somewhere it did not belong and clogged something, in spite of my cleaning, or because of my cleaning? I do my best to be thorough, but...
    – Jack
    Aug 13, 2015 at 20:11
  • Silly... if there is any LPG in the tank at all, the pressure will be the same as if the tank is full. The factors that can change delivery pressure are: temperature; supply piping size; regulator setting; volume use vs volume available (related to pipe size, regulator setting, and number/type of appliance). Aug 14, 2015 at 8:10

2 Answers 2

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Here is what I found out after going after a number of potential answers and still not enough propane being delivered to the generator or the BBQ for that matter. What the trouble was is the house propane is already regulated down to the standard 11" WC. I was trying to run the generator with the house pressure and yet still another regulator that allowed 11" WC too. These regulators are the ones which came with the generator and BBQ. One was more or less working against the other, constricting what either the generator or BBQ needed to run on.

I visited the propane dealer to confirm what I found online, the tech confirmed all my findings. I also bought 2-12' hoses with quick connects included. I was able to take off the short hoses, add the new ones and since I only needed 1 quick connect for the house to hook up either of the lines from the BBQ or generator, that left me with a spare connector to add to the old short line so I could still use a small portable propane tank if I needed to.

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Make sure the output on your regulator is set correctly -- probably about 10" WC.

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  • If only I had a gauge to measure it. As a mention, I did open the valve that was in place with the original install before I added the connector pictured above, and did not hear even a hiss, let alone a trickle of sound from the open valve. That prompted me to go into the crawlspace and check why the line seemed to be disconnected. That is how I found the pipe sizes I stated in the original post, AND everything is connected. I did not even smell anything at the first whiff, but I think the line was air blocked, and it took time for the gas to get to the end...
    – Jack
    Aug 13, 2015 at 20:00

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