Really need advice from anyone who runs a ribbon burner forge on house service propane, rather than a portable grill tank.

I just built a simple forge using the House Made ribbon burner kit and I am having a hard time getting it to work on house propane service.

The fittings and set up for this ribbon burner are designed to work using a portable propane tank with a flex line and regulator which has a built in valve and pressure gauge.

Most forging is done using 2-5PSI of propane.

Everything works great on the portable tank. HOWEVER when I try to connect the forge to my house propane line, which I just had installed for this very reason, so not to be refilling portable tanks anymore, I cannot get above 1psi of pressure from the gas line?? This is enough to light the forge and get up to around 1700F but no more.

I understand that the portable 100lb tanks I have run from 100-200psi but the regulator restricts that down to 2-5psi before it gets to the forge.

My house gas line from a 500gallon tank SHOULD be giving around 12PSI, which should be enough, but something changes when I connect from the portable tank to the house service line. Both lines are 3/8" flare type gas fittings.

Are you trying to use a naturally aspirated burner or a forced air burner?

Household appliances that use LP normally run on very low pressure.   Naturally aspirated burners require higher pressure.  A max of 12 psi would be lower than I'd like for a NA burner.   Some systems also have flow limiters installed.  A regulator will restrict the maximum pressure, and a flow limiter will restrict the volume of gas per minute.  Some will completely shut off the gas if the flow is higher than the setting on the limiter.  That's a safety feature to stop the gas in the event of a supply line break inside the house.  Attempting to use too much gas too quickly can simulate a leak and trigger these.  I'm not saying that's what's happening to you, but there is a possibility it could be involved.

I use propane for my hot water heater and furnace.  There is a regulator just outside the house, but it was there when I bought the house and I've never attempted to change the setting.

In theory you should be able to use a forced air burner with low pressure as long as it allows enough volume to flow. 

The gas company owns my tank so I've never tinkered with the fittings, even though I've been tempted to for the same reason as you.  If you own the tank AND local/state laws allow, you could potentially run another line directly from the tank to your forge.  If you do, I'd suggest installing a regulator at the tank itself to limit the line pressure to something like 30 psi and then another regulator at the forge to control the burner performance.

This could be a possibility 

Where ever you live it's unlikely you'll be able to get any gas company to increase the supply psi. from a propane tank. Laws, local regulations, codes, company policies, etc. can sometimes receive a variance if you're zoned for industrial. However the real driver for this and the flow restrictors now on almost every propane tank sold are the insurance companies. Most companies won't allow any home built propane burning appliance, some won't allow any non-approved UL listed propane appliance. 

I run my propane forges from old 100lb. / 20gal. propane tanks in my shop which is not covered by our home owners for anything but liability and theft. 

I believe Jennifer runs multiple propane forges in her learning center but she had to go through quite a bit to get it working and approved so the gas company would fill her tank.

I don't recall and looking up code where I live won't help you but I believe Florida Man is correct about a 2 stage regulator and a final delivery pressure measured in inches of water.

I don't believe current restricted flow will provide enough propane to do the job even if you used 1/2" supply line.

Check with the local county but do it from someone else's phone so you don't draw attention from your homeowners carrier, they can be outright silly nit picking an inspection. 

Frosty The Lucky.

There really should be sufficient flow available.  For example, I heat my house with a boiler fed through a 1/2" natural gas line.  That's about twice the cross-section of a 3/8 line, but propane at 11" WC is around four times as dense as NG at 7" -  so you should have about twice the flow available (or a lot more if you do get 12 PSI).

If you are running one, you may need to look at converting it to blown.  If you have a blown burner, the issue is probably that the plumbing is designed for a higher pressure. 

In that case, I'd look for the narrowest point in the system and open it up.  You could start with eliminating the regulator (if you haven't already).  You don't need that even if you're getting gas at 12 psi, but you would need to add  a control valve of some kind if there isn't one in the circuit. And if you do have control valve, you might need to swap it our for a higher flow one.  Finally, there may be an orifice you need to drill our or swap.  

(If there is a control valve, and the flame size increases steadily until it's fully open, the valve's likely the culprit.  But if the burner tops out partway through the adjustment, the restriction must be somewhere else.)

 

 

The last place I helped pipe in natural gas was for 2 psi. They have found 2 psi to be more efficient  and allow for smaller piping. 

I obviously don't know the science behind it. Just another anecdotal observation.

First thing, Buzzkill's question, forced air or NA needs to be answered.

NA requires higher pressures to operate than standard house pressure in natural gas or propane.

I would be really surprised if you actually have 12 psi propane to the house. International fuel gas code dictates max supply pressures to different applications. Usually I see around 10 - 14 inches of water column (1/2 PSI ish) for houses and commercial applications where I am. I have seen 2 psi end use supply only in industrial applications. I see 2 psi natural gas in commercial applications but it is always stepped down to the lower 8 inches water column before end use. As florida man stated, it allows more btu's to be pushed through small pipes, saving the expense of large plumbing for long runs.

Convincing the gas company to up the pressure is a good luck situation. Code and liability.

Forced air might could work with those pressures, but as previously stated, only if the regulator (and plumbing) can handle the volume required, probably not. Even then, if you have a burner designed for 5 psi, major things might have to be changed to get it to work.

 

This thread is really heating up...

The place was a Japanese restaurant.  FrankenBurner was right about it being commercial.

It is a forced air ribbon burner type forge

I spoke with someone who sold a forge to Jason Knight and they had a heck of a time getting enough gas from his 500 Gallon tank to the forge. Eventually they changed the regulator out at the big tank and ran about 30psi into his shop just to get the forges going.

I spoke to the gas company again and they are going to try and rework my connection.

The good ole' boy said something about "maybe need to come off the high pressure side rather than the low pressure side" and something about adding a T at my shop. Not sure what all that means but it may be that there is enough psi from the large tank but it then gets stepped down as someone said above to a tiny 1/2 psi for the use side. What is crazy is the forge worked at 1/2psi maybe less it was not readable on the pressure gauge but it did work with the forced air and got up to around 1600F.

Today running it on 2PSI from the 100lb portable tank I could not get it cooler than 1800F no matter how I turned down the air and gas. I was trying to harden some A6 steel and wanted to hold it at 1600F before air blast quenching. It worked out though.

Friday afternoon they should try to do something, we are out in the boonies so the local company may be more likely to help out with pressure issues and such.

Fingers crossed!

I use forced air and residential pressure natural gas in my forge.  I currently have a single port burner, but have run multi-port inthe past.   It gets up to welding temperatures.   However, I have commercial grade regulators and  a 1.5" gas line feeding the forge.  Propane is certainly different, but the lower the pressure the larger the line required to get the same BTUH output.  Codes are pretty easy to check to determine allowable indoor pressures and connection types (available online at this site: https://codes.iccsafe.org/codes/united-states )

Sounds like your regulator has more than one outlet. The one going to the house is the low pressure side. There is probably / possibly a second plug ahead of the regulated outlet.

Installing a T sounds dubious to me but there's an awful lot I don't know about plumbing flammable gas.

Frosty The Lucky.

Update,

We got the gas company to simply attach the 1/2" main line from our 500 gallon tank to my forge first, THEN to the house supply regulator, then to our house. This provided us with 10psi at the forge which should be plenty.

Thanks everyone for their ideas.

Josh

Plainly the best solution -- I'm glad the gas company was able to oblige!