Should I be smelling this much propane?

[Michael_in_TX]

Hi all,

A few days ago I discovered that I still had an old LP tabletop/tailgating grill.



It's a Charmglow brand, which may have been a private label made by Nexgrill for Home Depot for a time. The grill is ten years old and has been stored inside and unused all that time. I used it a few times when I first got it, but burnt nearly everything I did. I had no idea what I was doing, so I shelved it, literally.

I spent the past two days cleaning it out. I soaked the flame shield, grease tray, and grill gate in some Dawn overnight and that got all the grease off and (decade-old, eww) charred food off the gate. Porcelain grill grate is in great (pun intended?) condition. There are a few rust spots on the flame shield, however. I had a significant amount of grease in the interior, which I used some 409 to get off.

I fired it up this afternoon for about 40 minutes at various heat settings. It did not explode. (Yay?) Flame at low/med/high settings looks exactly as the manual says it should.

However.....it smells like propane, even from about 3-4 feet away with the lid closed. That seems like a silly thing to say, given it is a LP grill, but it did give me pause. Nothing inside was ignited that should be not be aflame. I flicked some soapy water on the regulator, but didn't see any bubbles (could be that I didn't have enough soap). The regulator is tight and the LP cylinder was tight as well.

Now, it has been ten years since I've even been around a LP grill, so I don't know what is normal. Suggestions?

--Michael

[Mark Swarbrick]

Ouch, well remove the flavor plate and discover under full pressure how much of the pipe is lighting. Burn off all the soapy cleaning. Now make a heavy soapy water and brush on pipes and connections. Fine
the leak!!

https://youtu.be/6f5FZdhNpxQ

[jfmorris]

You should not smell unburned propane, and fully burned propane does not have that distinctive odor. I'm with the previous poster - make sure that the burner flames go all the way around the burner, and that you are not blowing gas out part of it.

[Michael_in_TX]

Thanks for the advice!

I'll do another run tomorrow, this time with the flame shield off so I can see all parts of the burner. And I'll do a spritzer bottle with soap as well. If my leak truly is there, that method should indeed show it.

I'll report back!

--Michael

[Michael_in_TX]

Something else I just discovered. I just disconnected the attached LP canister in preparation to bring the grill back inside. After disconnecting it, the canister continued to make a hissing noise; in other words it didn't seal back up. Thankfully it was essentially empty.

It never occurred to me that these canisters have a shelf life. Coleman states on their website that stored properly, a canister should have shelf life of five to seven years. Well, these are at least two years beyond that. So I think I'll retire them (i.e. put them aside for this year's hazardous waste pickup) and pick up a new one tomorrow for my test.

--Michael

[Mr. Bones]

Very good plan!
That cylinder sounds scary, to me...

Tell kitty cat I said Happy New Year, no worries, yer included as well!!!

[Michael_in_TX]

Here is my update.

I attached a brand-new Coleman-brand canister to the grill. I filled a spritzer bottle with Dawn and water. I opened the regulator.

First, I did not smell the outpouring of propane that I did yesterday with the 9-year-old canister. I then sprayed the regulator and associated areas with the soap/water mixture. Nothing bubbled up. I repeated this several times.

I then -- with the grill and flame shield absent -- lit the grill.

Everything looked nominal. A good low blue flame across the entire U-shaped element.

I let it burn for awhile. I then had my wife come out a few times at intervals that would allow one's olfactory senses to recover. She smelled just a hint of propane.

I do believe that the overwhelming scent of propane I encountered yesterday was due to a faulty/old/leaky canister. Winds are as calm as they were yesterday. I do not smell, no-where-near, the smell I encountered a day ago. That is exceptionally significant.

I am on the fence. This was an inexpensive grill purchased at Home Depot ten years ago. It seems to be okay. Aside from waving a long-handle lit-match around the grill, I don't know what else to try.

My desire is to have a small grill on which I can easily do hotdogs/salmon on a weeknight.

--Michael

[EdF]

Sounds like you have it pegged for the time-being. Just continue to pay attention, right?

[Michael_in_TX]

Absolutely; will do.

--Michael

[jfmorris]

Your findings seem reasonable. It’s been a while, but don’t those disposable cylinders have an o-ring where they screw into the grill regulator, or is the o-ring on the grill side? Either way, a cracked or dried out o-ring could cause a slight leak like that.