Mains gas barbecues

[Tim Downie]

At present my gas barbecue is positioned just feet away from a mains gas supply inside the house. T'would be the work of a moment to tap into the mains but is it worth it?

I rather suspect that I wouldn't be able to re-jet my present one (although it would be nice if I could) but I was wondering if anyone has any experience of mains gas barbecues.

While I'm at it (and bearing in mind the withdrawal of incandescent bulbs) how about some nice gas lights? Anyone fitted any of these? Any advice regarding cost, feasibility etc.?

Tim

[Andrew Gabriel]

I have one which I tried several years ago when I bought it.

doesn't work very well because the jet, air hole, etc wasn't designed for natural gas (probably town gas). I know what mantle it requires (and even more surprisingly, found a shop only a few hundred yards from my front door with a box load of them), but I couldn't find out any information about what power the mantle was supposed to burn at, which makes sizing a jet and getting gas/air mixture flow speed correct rather difficult. I might get back to it sometime, but as projects go, it's abandoned at the moment.

However, I will comment that compared to a filament lamp, they are horribly inefficient, but surprisingly not yet banned ;-) It probably chucks out something like 500W+ heat, but I doubt the mantle would generate more than 100W filament equivalent of light even with the correct jet/mixture/speed, if that.