Grill propane hoses

[booster]

We had trouble with our propane grill getting hot enough on our last little trip, which had happened before, went away, never really resolved. Upon getting home I ran the stove on the hose it did fine, used a regulator off another grill and it ran fine, so we are replacing the regulator.

While messing around trying to find out what was going on, I found a chewed up o-ring in one of the hose connectors. It is the connector that hooks up to the grill regulator just like a bottle would. I checked the same style fittings on our tee hose, and found one of the two slightly damaged.

Here is the fitting style we are talking about. The oring goes right under the plastic sleeve in a groove



The regulator attaches to that fitting



As does our tee hose if we run the stove and grill at the same time



Both the regulator and tee fitting above have a slot across the end of the piece that goes into the oring, and they were sharp enough to cut the orings, so I filed them smoother

I was loading the pics into the computer, and noticed that one of the fittings I took a pic of looked to have a scrap of oring in the valve at the bottom of the fitting



Went back out with the flashlight and magnifying glass, and it did have a curl of oring shaving almost 3/16" long. That probably could contribute to the low flow too, I suppose.

I put new orings in and lubed them with a little silicone grease, and now the regulator and fittings go together much easier. The orings are a PITA to get in, but doable.

Here are the orings, which are about $2 per hundred from McMaster



The same setup is used in the little bottles, including the orings, which look like they are the same, but they only get connected a few times there so less likely to fail.

Based on what we saw on ours, if you use a hose from the van tank for your grill or stove, it would probably pay to take a look at the orings to see if you have damage like we did.