Thread: School me on gas regulators please.

Does your old regulator state its supply pressure? Is this different to the supply pressure of the new regulator? Are either of the regulators adjustable? They used to have a removable centre cap which allowed you to adjust the pressure.

Maybe you could drill out the jets in the burners to allow better use of the lower pressure gas.

Aaron.

I've got a CIG oxy and acetylene adjustable reg set.............. one might work.

I'd swap both for a good radiator.

Is this a beefeater BBQ? Have one of those I rebuilt. Has the original hose and reg. Can have a squiz at the specs.

DL

Is your BBQ running on (jetted for) natural gas or lpg?

There should be a sticker saying which near the hose. Different regs for each gas.

DL

Domestic gas needs to be at 2.75 Kpa. Not a great idea to use an Oxy or LPG Tradesmans reg as I think they start at 100Kpa, although things would get hot pretty fast. I know it wasn't a serious suggestion.

Has the old unit ascended yet, or is it still in purgatory. If you can get the energy rating off it then you might have a chance of getting a good match, if it's old it's probably in BTU, otherwise it's in MJoules / hour (or minutes, I forget) , but energy rating is directly related to flow. The laws on what hardware stores can sell may have changed in the last few years, to reflect the level of expert advice offered.
Have you tried a BBQ store instead of Bunnings.
There is a changeover of regulator type needed at a certain energy rating.

You may need to go to a 2 stage regulator. Not recommending this unit, but like this one. LPG DUAL STAGE GAS REGULATOR Suits Most Brand Caravans And Campers | eBay.

Your local gas fitter will have a better grasp on how much, but they will need to know how much energy your Barbie chews thru.

Regards Glen

Originally Posted by Aaron IIA

Does your old regulator state its supply pressure? Is this different to the supply pressure of the new regulator? Are either of the regulators adjustable? They used to have a removable centre cap which allowed you to adjust the pressure.

Maybe you could drill out the jets in the burners to allow better use of the lower pressure gas.

Aaron.

Old reg has gone to god - I didn’t think I’d need it. Not keen on drilling out the jets as it used to work great as it was - just need a new reg that works like the old one. Old
one had a screw cap in to adjust - not that I ever needed to, but new ones have a crimped cap over them - I even pried that off and adjusted it up as far as it would go but it didn’t do
much.

Originally Posted by 350RRC

I've got a CIG oxy and acetylene adjustable reg set.............. one might work.

I'd swap both for a good radiator.

Is this a beefeater BBQ? Have one of those I rebuilt. Has the original hose and reg. Can have a squiz at the specs.

DL

Rad is sitting here waiting for lockdown to end. 😁. Unit is an Esperance 5 - from what is now Illusion Gas fires - they used to make a great BBQ.

Originally Posted by 350RRC

Is your BBQ running on (jetted for) natural gas or lpg?

There should be a sticker saying which near the hose. Different regs for each gas.

DL

Jetted for LPG which it’s always run. I do have the natural gas kit for it - reg and jets to suit but never used.

Originally Posted by Dorian

Domestic gas needs to be at 2.75 Kpa. Not a great idea to use an Oxy or LPG Tradesmans reg as I think they start at 100Kpa, although things would get hot pretty fast. I know it wasn't a serious suggestion.

Has the old unit ascended yet, or is it still in purgatory. If you can get the energy rating off it then you might have a chance of getting a good match, if it's old it's probably in BTU, otherwise it's in MJoules / hour (or minutes, I forget) , but energy rating is directly related to flow. The laws on what hardware stores can sell may have changed in the last few years, to reflect the level of expert advice offered.
Have you tried a BBQ store instead of Bunnings.
There is a changeover of regulator type needed at a certain energy rating.

You may need to go to a 2 stage regulator. Not recommending this unit, but like this one. LPG DUAL STAGE GAS REGULATOR Suits Most Brand Caravans And Campers | eBay.

Your local gas fitter will have a better grasp on how much, but they will need to know how much energy your Barbie chews thru.

Regards Glen

Thanks - can’t go to any other store unfortunately due to
lockdown. Nearest BBQ store is over the 10KM limit and only doing click and collect. Old reg has gone unfortunately.

Gav, if the unit is still a current model, ring a retailer and ask what's on the reg. If it's no longer available, find one on Gumtree et al,and ask the same the question.

Originally Posted by Homestar

Hopefully someone here will know as I haven’t been able to get any useful information from Google on this one.

I have a 5 burner BBQ - around 15 years old, full thick stainless steel Aussie made unit so it’s still as good as the day it was made but the regulator has gone to god. Simple I thought, so I bought a new one from Bunnings that said it suited 5 and 6 burner BBQ’s. Well it’s useless and doesn’t supply nearly enough gas to run more than one burner going full bore - these are the old style cast units, not the drilled bits of pipe they use these days.

I took it back and swapped it thinking it was faulty which they were happy to do, but same thing. I then pulled the reg off my partners modern 5 burner which runs that unit well only to find the same thing.

My guess is that these older units used much more gas - which is fine by me as it used to be able to get really hot quickly, then I could turn it down to minimum to cook with - the modern one needs to be on max the whole time to cook a snag.

So, can anyone tell me where I can get a regulator that will work or what the go is with the modern ones compared to what used to be on there? I don’t want to just order regulators randomly and see if they work.

TIA.

Where did you get your gas from? If you're not sure, put the bottle in your house, or try again on a warm day. I've had a bottle of gas here that just wouldn't burn when I used it in the middle of winter. I worked out it must have had autogas in it .... a really ****ty low quality autogas that was mostly butane. So it wouldn't boil off in the cold ballarat winter temperatures of a night.

All the LPG regulators should be the same pressure, it would be the gas jet that sets the amount of gas flowing wouldn't it ?

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

All the LPG regulators should be the same pressure, it would be the gas jet that sets the amount of gas flowing wouldn't it ?

If the jets consume less gas than the Reg is rated for, yes, but regs come in different flow rates (or energy delivery).

Cheers Glen