Fuel Regulators Explained

all right today's video is on the different types of regulators because I encounter a lot of different types of regulators you know as you do as you know I do orifices and a user on the other end is going to have one of these types of regulators generally speaking okay now this is the most common type and this is a you know propane regulator that you find on a barbecue it's a fixed regulator so it can't be adjusted and it does have what's known as this QC c1 connector that connects it to the propane bottle okay the next most common regulator that I encounter is this one here which is you know your standard well it's made by chin fun but there's a number of different manufacturers that make it but typically this is the most prevalent manufacturer that you're going to see out there it's a regulator that can be adjusted okay so you can take off this cap here usually got to use a dimer a penny nothing else will fit in that slot or a screwdriver okay and the cap comes out and it can be adjusted okay so in this case the cap houses a plunger that pushes either pushes down on this spring or not the spring pushes down in the diaphragm and that's how it determines what the what the water column is okay this thing is rated at five inches of natural gas water column and 10 inches of propane okay water column is a relative measurement of the amount of gas that goes through a regulator or the amount of pressure relative to the environment so it's sea level you're going to see five and ten inches of water column here okay there are adjustments that need to be made for out things at altitude or below altitude and we're going to get into that discussion a little bit later because that's what these other raters are all about okay this cap here plunger okay it's set right now on LP as you can see it says LP there right there and I'm trying to get that in focus okay LP if you take the cap out now typically you pull the cap out and then you stick it back in the other side but this one here you have to screw it in and that's just the kind of the screwball nature of getting parts from overseas they're not always consistent but anyway this one here you flip the cap over BAM okay no I'm sorry this is this is the LP side see how the LP is straight up now when it's on LP this plunger is going to be plunging on that spring okay on the other side we'll flip it back over on the other side when it's not pushing against the spring it is set up for natural gas and the way to know that is that you can read this n 80 and the plane the spring is not being plunged on okay this will go back on here okay screws back on there you know your hand tighten it with a with a coin and you're done okay so that's your typical these are your most these are your most common of regulators okay the other types of regulators okay we've talked about how this one can be changed now this one can't be changed this one has to be swapped out in favor of this one on a barbecue that it has a less than a hundred and fifty thousand BTUs there is a limit to this regulator if you notice the size of the body that restricts the amount of flow that it can actually give you okay these bigger regulators these are more seen on commercial appliances or can be used on commercial appliances so I'm going to take this one out of here I'm going to take this one out of here we're going to talk about the other the other regulators okay so you have a regulator made by max trawl okay the RV 48 L again this one here also has a lid but it cannot be changed for one gas to another if you notice the rating is po5 inches to 12 inches that means inches of water column okay this is a propane regulator the native pressure that this and by the way it shows your event right that means that ya shoots through that side oh and I probably should show you on this so well there's always an arrow to indicate flow on these regulators in this case the arrows this way so the flow goes that way okay and the other one is obvious which direction the flow is going to go on that one alright so this one here eight inches of water column that's what it's set at it's variable from five to 12 inches anytime you see a P oh you know 5-12 that means that it can go from one to the other and and it can be adjusted and it will need to be adjusted depending on the altitude that you're working with this one out okay so higher the altitude less less pressure you need from this because the air is thinner up there it's going to resist the flow of gas less an altitude than it will at sea level okay because the air is denser it's you know so this guy screws off here again with a nickel or dime I've already loosened it and you've got this open part here and you stick a screwdriver in there and when you twist it out it's going to give you more inches of water column and when you twist it in which is clockwise right screw down it will give you less inches of water coming will be more restrictive to the flow of gas going through it okay now since this is a propane regulator if you see this an RV for TL or natural gas it's going to there's going to be a variance of what this figure down here will be because they are very there are different versions of it but your typical you know prosumer type regulator is going to be rated from three inches water column which will say 3.0 or just three inches to 6.0 inches of water column and again it'll have a screw inside of it just like this one does okay for adjustable that one will be used for natural gas you have to know which type you have and it will also be marked here with what the what the native of you know what it's set at from the factory in this case this one set a date inches so it's right between that five and at twelve typically you're going to want something to be setup for 10 inches of water column at sea level you know depends on what you're doing I've set them up for less you know but it just depends but this is this comes from the factory at 8 inches of water column and it comes that way for a safety reason because you're going to typically adjust it out in just the pressure upwards as you're trying to adjust a low flame setting on a BBQ or stove or whatever this is first stove this is six burn stone now typically when you see this regulator okay the most common orifice that you'll see with that regulator yeah I I don't I don't think I've ever seen one of them that has this type of orphis that does not have this type of regulator for some reason okay and there are these if you see these orifices you can just about count on that fact that it's going to have one of these types of regulator and either propane or natural gas versions okay there might be other orifices that are used with them but typically when you see these invariably almost you're not going to see this orifice without this regulator in either natural gas or propane version depending on what the stove was made for okay I want to move that aside okay the next two regulators most common type is your is a Harper Wineman okay Harper Wyman is another type of adjustable regulator that can be adjusted from natural gas propane so this does have an adjustment on it the you know it's stamped on top what the native for each different setting is it says for for NAT 10 LP that means four inches of natural gas okay for net and 10 LP a 10 inches of water column for natural or for liquid propane okay oh and by the way now that I'm mentioning that typically these regulators here will give you 11 inches of water column if that's not confusing this one's going to give you an inch of water column more than you know this guy or this guy or whichever when you're talking about okay okay so let's get back to this this guy here is adjustable the way it's done is it's got a kind of a tang setup okay on both sides here and you can see if you look at the lid it'll tell you what it's set for NAT right now in 18 okay but if you twist this out yeah let me get the I'll get this instead okay you take this guy out of here it comes out you flip it see how it says it I'll pee on that side you flip it that way and now what it's doing it's pushing on the spring and it's going to give you your LP coming out of here at 10 inches at at sea level okay so just kind of twist it back in there I'm probably giving you a bad example how that goes but anyway this goes back in there it gets twisted down and typically you got to have a blade going across there but anyway it goes back in there you twist it in and then set up for 10 inches of LP liquid propane yeah this regulator here is a different type of regulator that's a regulator that you'll see on a commercial appliance so typically one of these guys okay the reason I'm carrying this with us is because this is the gasket that goes with it it's actually part of a larger system okay that features an on/off button this is for the thermostat okay sometimes it'll have an electric electronic control okay and that's where this actually sits this sits back in the back like that this is the LP version of this regulator if it were a natural gas it probably would say either 4.0 or 5.0 inches of water column and I don't know if there's variants I'm pretty sure there is there's a quite a few of these out there for commercial kitchens this is a commercial kitchen application okay and this is the regulator that controls it and it has two screws you pop those out you take this off and you replace it with the other style and that's how you change this over this is a master system so again it has an on/off the gas flow goes through it in a certain direction it also has a thermostat on there okay and it also has an electronic control on there and other features depending on the type of appliance that it comes off of that's what you'll see on these and there's a bunch of different one like I said they're made by Robert Shaw and Honeywell so you'll see tons of different configurations on these some you know and these typically are sometimes referred to as multi multi stage regulators you know blah blah blah there's a bunch of different types of these available okay and it just depends on what you're doing so I hope I covered everything that is the overview of what types of fuel of how what fuel regulators there are out there what types they are and how they're used and when you would use them the ones that can be changed I'll give you an overview again okay the ones that can be altered are this one and this one as far as going in between natural gas and propane this one can be adjusted this back again let me restate that the ones there's one here that's fixed it cannot be altered which is this one the ones that can be altered between natural gas and propane or this one in this one okay and they're they're actually this ones here set for 4 inches of natural gas 10 inches of LP this one's for 5 inches of natural gas 10 inches of LP and I have seen these in foreign can also combinations and the ones that this one can't can be adjusted to adjust for LP only since it's 5 to 12 inches of water column and if it were the natural gas version of it again that would say 3 inches to 6 inches of water column okay and it can be adjusted also by pulling off the snout here and then making that adjustment below this one here is fixed again it says 11 point Oh inches of water column here which is kind of unusual because it matches this one here typically you know I'm used to seeing 10 inches of water column but that's when this one was set at and it goes on one of these big guys one of those okay now there's one more thing I might show you here okay and that is verifying what a regulator does now I don't ever verify what a regulator does I don't want to get into doing that I don't want a quality check anything you know I you I send these off these are done to industry standards they should be said or something's wrong I send I send another one out to a customer you know but typically if you do need to verify what your pressure is sent out let's say you have one of these guys right and you absolutely have to verify and you're a professional right which I'm I seriously doubt I'm talking to anybody who's a professional but anyway you can get one of these little guys here manometer and that will tell you by hooking up by doing different hook ups what the output of one of these regulator is is this one reads in ten different scales so you know it'll read water water column it'll read you know it there's just a bunch of different standards that are used for gas settings and this one here has ten different scales on it that can be flipped back and forth got a little buttons on the side you can record scenarios of spikes and drops and stuff like that you know a pretty technical tool that's not really going to be necessary for somebody just doing a gas conversion in their own kitchen I hope this video helps and it certainly clarifies what types of regulators there are out there and which and what the adjustments are if any and which ones can be adjusted which ones can't be adjusted thanks for watching the video

Channel: Frank Hamilton

Views: 195,666

Keywords: fuel, regulator, propane, lp, Natural, Gas, cooking, stove, bar-b-que, bar, que, flame, fire, nat, liquid, heat, barbecue

Id: AddrkTCBd7c

Length: 17min 14sec (1034 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2018