Propane vs Natural Gas

[johnnyboy]

I got to wondering, after reading Jackie f/ Jersey post of cautioning lighting a filled grill, about the properties/types of gas.

I have a Natural Gas (NG) burner. There's been many times the burner has gone out on me. Before I re-light I definitely open the dome and smell for gas. Many times the heat deflector is in and I never take it out. If I don't smell gas I close it; most times I don't smell gas. I'd think there must be some gas trapped under the heat deflector; but I've never experienced even a little boom. Kinda confuses me how fast the gas dissipates. Is that something NG does better than Propane/Butane?

[jdbower]

My guess is you've got three things going for you:

1. Most of the KK's here don't have huge cracks in them

2. Propane is a fairly simple molecule consisting of three carbons and a bunch of freeloading hydrogrens. Natural gas is a combination of gasses obtained as "waste" products from petroleum refineries but also they have a large component of methane which has one lonely carbon atom surrounded by some mean old hydrogens. This makes the natural gas lighter and able to dissipate faster than the propane alone.

3. Propane tanks generally have a higher pressure than natural gas lines. This means that a propane burner may produce more BTUs than an equivalent NG burner but it uses more fuel in the process (although typically there would be a different flow restrictor to help equalize this for big appliances like stoves and water heaters). A natural gas burner may simply send in less fuel per unit time so there isn't as much to build up.

Just some guesses, but they kind of make sense before I've had my coffee.

[johnnyboy]

Does make sense JDBower.

Thanks a bunch.