Shop furnace question

I have a older natural gas Day&Night shop furnace. You know the type that suspends from the ceiling. Can this be converted to propane easily? I recently got set up for gas service in a commercial location, and it seems nobody ever labled the pipe to the meter, so the gas company requires a plumber (at my expense) to determine which pipe. I am going to cancel the whole thing and was wondering if a propane conversion was doable and just run the thing off of a tank.

daryl bane said:

I have a older natural gas Day&Night shop furnace. You know the type that suspends from the ceiling. Can this be converted to propane easily? I recently got set up for gas service in a commercial location, and it seems nobody ever labled the pipe to the meter, so the gas company requires a plumber (at my expense) to determine which pipe. I am going to cancel the whole thing and was wondering if a propane conversion was doable and just run the thing off of a tank.

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Should be just a mater of buying a kit to change the orifice to one for propane... It's going to cost you more to use propane that natural gas not to mention the time and effort to keep filling the bottles...

all the above ditto.
USE THE MAINS GAS = LONG TERM COST SAVING.

Pay the man to sort it out for you and label pipe this time.

Thanks all, but I think I figured a solution.

daryl bane said:

Thanks all, but I think I figured a solution.

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So... Is it a secret?

Seems all the gas company needs to know is which unhooked pipe(the meter is missing) is the one that goes to my space. I walked out and looked at the meter setup and is pretty obvious as I am the only one without gas in the complex, one out of four units...duh, but since the pipe was not marked they wouldn't hook it up. One pipe in and one pipe out. I would think certain shop equipment and a helper could be used to safety determine that that is the correct pipe and then label it accordingly. If that is not good enough, I'll cancel the order and refund my $350 ouch! deposit. I haven't really needed it as it really doesn't get that cold it there, seems residual heat from the neighbors helps that, but sometimes would like just to knock the morning chill off.

I hope your experience with the local gas company is better than mine was. I was on Natural gas for several years and got ripped every year because they read my meter every month and charged me for that little service. I only used the gas for about 3 1/2 months a year. I asked about shutting it off for the summer months and they informed me it cost $150.00 to turn it back on. I finally had it taken out and switched to propane and wish I had done it years ago. The end result is that Propane is not expensive. The propane people are nice to deal with. The local gas company, not so. Good luck.

JH

swatkins said:

Should be just a mater of buying a kit to change the orifice to one for propane.

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It all depends on how the pilot is set-up on the furnace. Then, there's the local codes on tank placement and plumbing to the tank. There are many cities where propane tanks are not allowed within city limits.
JR