Extending propane line questions

[thammel]

I hope someone has experience with this.

I have a 500 gallon buried propane tank. 1" black pipe runs into my house and terminates in my basement where smaller lines run to the following: furnace, water heater, stovetop and heat'n glo fireplace.

I want to extend it from my basement through the new attached mudroom crawlspace and to the new attached garage. What I want to do is put in "t's" and valves for 3 things: possible future gas clothes dryer in the new mudroom (laundry room), location in garage for possible heated garage floor boiler and to a ceiling location in garage for Reznor type ceiling heater, which I'll do first.

Garage is 32 x 28 with 12' ceilings and I'm figuring a 45 or 60k btu heater. The pex is in for the floor but for now the darn boilers are really expensive and I've spent way too much already.

1) Can I extend off 1" line in the basement and have enough gas flow? Some have said I might need to run small liquid line from tank but this is a long run which means a lot of trenching - pain in the **** and more messed up grass when I just got it all fixed up!

2) Have any of you done this yourself? Would you use black pipe or flex corrugated stainless steel? If using black pipe, do you rent or own the large dies to thread?

3) If you do it yourself, do you shut off the valve tank and then do a quick installation of the new to the old?

4) I don't imagine anyone has done the connection to the liquid line outside - if so, please tell me about this.

I've done tons of plumbing and elec work and am not concerned re the piping work, although I only have experience with copper and plastic.

Thanks!
Tom

 

[rasit]

I got to start out by saying if you don't know what you are doing with gas or propane you should be looking to hire someone who does because if you fukc up you might blow your house up. That's probably why you haven't gotten anybody to respond to your questions, but I will give a few pointers to each of them:

1) Can I extend off 1" line in the basement and have enough gas flow?

1) The buried line from the tank is high pressure that goes to a regulator before it enters the house. The regulator lowers the pressure to supply the various equipment. The pipe is sized based off the total BTU demand and the distance to each component. You should draw a layout sketch with each run of pipe (distance) and each piece of equipment (KBTU). Using the program in the following link will calculate the size pipe required for each run. Make sure to enter proper parameters (propane) on the first tab before entering your system. It will give you the option of iron pipe or CSST (Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing). If after doing this you find that your existing 1" line is too small the next option would be either replace it with larger pipe or have your propane supplier or plumber/HVAC tap into the buried line before the regulator and run another high pressure feed to the new garage with another regulator.

http://www.wardflex.com/images/WFSize2.2.4.zip

2) Have any of you done this yourself? Would you use black pipe or flex corrugated stainless steel?

2) It doesn't matter if I did this myself, the question is, are you capable and willing to take on the risk if you fukc it up? CSST is a great labor saver but the material costs are higher.

3) If you do it yourself, do you shut off the valve tank and then do a quick installation of the new to the old?

3) Before doing the work there should be a valve before the regulator that you have to shut off, if not you will more than likely blow up your house. There should never be a "quick installation of the new to the old" when messing with gas. When the piping is complete it has to be tested before putting it in service. Some people think it is ok to turn the gas back on and go around to each joint with a Bic lighter to check for leaks which I would not recommend.

4) I don't imagine anyone has done the connection to the liquid line outside - if so, please tell me about this.

4) It's only liquid in the tank, you draw off the gas from the top of tank unless yours is installed upside down. Based on your questions I would not recommend you mess with the line outside and I refuse to tell you anything else about it for fear you will attempt to mess with it.

I've done tons of plumbing and elec work and am not concerned re the piping work,

You should be concerned with the piping work....Good Luck with your project

 

[thammel]

I appreciate your responses and I suppose I worded this a bit too naively. I've done lots of related work and am aware of the need to turn off the main gas valve before doing any gas line disconnects and changes. My comment about a quick change is that after shutting off a main gas valve that there will still be propane in the lines after the valve. I wonder if there's any concern to that small amount of gaseous propane escaping. My question about making the connection to the high pressure line before the regulator outside is simply whether any here have actually done that. I realize the need to do the gas volume demand calculations and just thought that perhaps someone here with experience in doing this could tell me off the cuff from their experience with their similar situation whether it sounded like what I have could work. Thanks for the link to the calculator program. I'll run through this. I definitely am getting estimates to do this work. I always like to double check the "pros" some of whom are not too swift. I once got an estimate from a "pro" builder who didn't seem to understand such a simple concept as roof pitch and how that impacted total building height!! Finally I do use snoop when checking for leaks. The thought of a flame source to check for gas leaks is maniacal, although some do this!

Thanks again!
Tom

 

[slip knot]

I'll second the Wardflex. My plumber used that in both of my past remodels and swears by it. Honestly certified gas plumbers are not that expensive. I've done a lot of plumbing/pipefitting over the years and still wont hesitate to hire a pro when it comes to my families safety.

 

[rasit]

Sorry for the blunt response. At work I often see too many people biting off more than they can chew. The results are often poor quality work which in this case could be catostraphic. I hadn't had my coffee yet and was being a *****.

Small amounts of residual gas in the pipe are not a problem. Tapping into the high pressure side and adding another regulator often makes sense where it's too difficult to snake, or too long of a run to point of use.