In the domestic arena, indoor cooking, heating and hot water systems are the best-known uses of natural gas. However, despite being a key feature of life in Australia, the benefits of running barbeques on natural gas are often overlooked.
Gas Today spoke with Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association of Australia (GAMAA) barbeque industry council representative Demian Coorey, who believes that “natural gas barbeques are one of the great frontiers of the natural
gas industry.”?
Why convert?
Mr Coorey believes that there are two key benefits to running a barbeque on natural gas rather than LPG.
The first is the cost savings – LPG is approximately four times the price of natural gas. This can translate to considerable savings over the life of the barbeque.
Secondly, natural gas doesn’t run out. If your house is connected to mains gas, there is no need for trips to refill the LPG bottle. There’s no chance of running out of gas and getting stuck with a half-cooked steak.
What’s the process?
Converting an LPG barbeque to natural gas is a very simple process, says Mr Coorey.
Firstly, the “˜low’ setting of the barbeque needs to be changed. Mains gas has a lower pressure than bottled LPG, which means that the flame height when the barbeque is on the “˜low’ setting will differ between the two. As such, the turndown setting of the valve connecting to the burner needs to be adjusted to make it suitable for natural gas.
The next and final step is to change the regulator. On LPG barbeques, the hose and regulator connects to a gas bottle. This simply needs to be changed to a regulator that goes on the end of a gas pipe.
Obviously, this needs to be done by a licensed gas fitter to ensure your natural gas barbeque is safe to use.
What kind of barbeque can convert?
It is economics, not mechanics, that determines whether a barbeque is suitable for conversion, says Mr Coorey. For a barbeque to be able to run on natural gas, it needs wider jets and thicker piping than would be used on an LPG barbeque. Around 90 per cent of barbeques sold in Australia are to customers planning to use LPG as fuel, which means that barbeques are designed with LPG usage in mind.
Converting a barbeque to natural gas can cost between $50-100, which means that converting a $150 barbeque is a relatively large investment, says Mr Coorey. As such, manufacturers don’t install the appropriate jets and pipes on lower-priced barbeques. For a more expensive barbeque, the cost of conversion becomes relatively smaller, meaning that manufacturers produce barbeques that can run on both fuels.
Barbeque retailers can advise as to whether a barbeque can be converted – in fact, the vast majority of barbeques can. Some barbeques can be bought ready for use with natural gas at little or no price difference to their LPG counterparts.
Certain retailers can also drill larger jets in LPG-only barbeques in order to make them compatible with natural gas.
Why the LPG?
The one reason people haven’t or won’t change their LPG barbeques, according to Mr Coorey, is the “˜mobile barbeque mentality’. Both portable and built-in barbeques that currently run on or can be converted to natural gas are available on the market.
The idea of being able to move the barbeque around the backyard is appealing. However, it is a very rarely used feature, says Mr Coorey – they’re put in one place in the backyard and they never move.
Secondly, the notion of connecting to piped gas sounds complicated to most people, Mr Coorey says. A self-contained unit using a bottle of LPG sounds like a simpler option, despite the advantages of natural gas.
Encouraging conversion
At present, natural gas barbeques make up only a small percentage of the market, mostly due to low awareness. Fuel source is usually a secondary concern for customers, who are more interested in grill size, number of burners and ease of cleaning. In general hardware stores it can be difficult for customers to get information on barbeques, and in specialist chains natural gas as a fuel option is not often discussed.
Mr Coorey says that, from the sales data he has seen, only around 10 per cent of barbeques sold are for use with natural gas. That percentage is slowly increasing. So what can be done to encourage conversion?
“It would make sense to bring out a natural gas-only barbeque,”? says Mr Coorey. “Something that was quite desirable – priced particularly well but had some kind of drawcard to it that would make it attractive in its own right. But the fact that it’s a natural gas-only barbeque would start raising some questions.”?
From there, says Mr Coorey, the advantages of natural gas as a fuel source can be discussed with a salesperson. The aim would be to draw attention to the advantages of natural gas as a fuel.
The industry might also consider subsidised installation of the model, as has been done with other appliances in the past, Mr Coorey says. Although pipe extensions to the backyard may be needed, the low cost of natural gas ensures a rapid payback period for the installation costs incurred.
Taste test
The key question for backyard chefs, of course, is if there is a difference in cooking results between natural gas and LPG barbeques. Mr Coorey says “If the barbeque is designed correctly, there will be no difference because the way they’re set is so that the heat output on LPG is exactly the same as the heat output on natural gas. They’re tested by the AGA or SAI Global to make sure that’s the case.”?
So if the heat output remains the same, the cooking results do too.