low output, what happened?

[m121212]

I purchased a new Webster Spirit E210 propane grill from home depot. I also got a 20 pound pre-purged tank, branded Bernzomatic.

I had the tank filled at our local U-Haul store. The scale read 5.0 after he filled it. (Is that too full?)

I tried grilling on the new setup with mixed success. It seemed like the output was low, and the built-in dome thermometer had a hard time hitting 300F. It went like that for about an hour and a half, food was barely cooking. I convinced myself that I should return the grill.

I let it run for a while, and when I came back out, I saw that the flame was much stronger, and the temp easily ran to 550F after opening the dome.

I'm just curious what happened. Perhaps the tank required a re-purge? I don't suspect that was the issue since home depot has pretty high customer traffic and moves these tanks. Or was it just over-filled? How would over-filling cause the symptoms I had?

 

[tiewunon]

Typically a 20lb cylinder is full at 4.7 gal of propane. Yours read 5 gal. Can't explain that.

Your cylinder has an overfill protection device (OPD) installed in it to prevent overfill so that extra 3/10 ths of a gal may be slop in the propane dispensing at Uhaul.

A piece of low hanging fruit that may have caused your problem initially.
- Did you open the valve on the cylinder rapidily? If so slow down when opening cylinder valve.
- Sometimes its your regulator. Just close the valve on the cylinder. Then remove the QD by unscrewing it and removing the regulator. Wait about 10 seconds reseat the regulator, retighten the QD. Slowly open the cylinder valve, relight the grill and you should be in business. I have had this problem in the past.

Sometimes you just have a bad regulator period. Grill will never get up to temp and in that case a new regulator is in order. I do not think this is your problem.

Hope above helps.

 

[Daver]

Equalize the diagram in the regulator. First, turn off gas at tank. Next, unscrew regulator from tank. Turn on all knobs to high. Wait a few minutes. Turn all knobs off. Reconnect regulator to tank. Now try.