From roy@powerpcs.com Sun Jul 28 17:40 MDT 2002
From: Roy Brotherhood

Hello Alek:

My name is Roy Brotherhood and I reside in Elmira, NY (7 miles from PA, near Corning, NY).

I purchased a Member's Mark grill from Sam's club last October and have really enjoyed it. After looking at the big name grills with $1,800 to $2,000 price tags I found this one to be a great value (I almost purchased a $1,900 Fire Magic grill before seeing the Members Mark at Sam's Club). Shortly after my purchase I had the idea of converting to natural gas so I did a search and found your information. I must day it is very detailed and accurate. It was a BIG help in making my job much easier. I finally got around to the conversion this month and finished it yesterday. The toughest part of the job was getting the gas line out to my deck. My home dates back to 1866 and has a foundation nearly 30" thick. It took the heating company I hired over 6 hours to get through it.

Here is a rundown of what I did. I ran 25' of stainless flexible gas line out to my deck. Just inside the foundation wall I installed an in-line gas regulator. Even though the incoming pressure is regulated I wanted that little extra ability to tweak the system when I needed it. The regulator added only $10.00 to the project cost. There are redundant valves; one in the basement and another at the grill. From the deck valve to the grill I used =BD" stainless flex line.

My actual finished orifice sizes were: main burner orifice .098" (#40 drill), main valve LOW orifice .055" (#54 drill). Side burner orifice .078" (#47 drill). Back burner orifice .0625" (1/16" drill).

FYI our altitude in Elmira, NY is 955'. Pressure readings (in inches of water) - Line pressure (nothing on) was 4.3"

Main burners on                         HIGH                LOW
1 burner                                3.7"                3.9"
2 burners                               3.4"                3.7"
3 burners                               3.0"                3.3"
3 burners & back burner                 2.8"                3.3"
back burner only                        3.9"                n/a

With the settings I have the grill heats from cold to 450 degrees in less than 15 minutes. I did a test run with some steaks last night and was able to do a much better job with searing than when it was on propane.