Using Butane

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

I have been reading the thread on gas valves and how it has got hijacked onto propane and acetylene, with the consequent new thread on acetylene.

 

I have some queries about butane, hence this new thread. I’m hoping that those people who have been discussing gases elsewhere can advise me.

 

Background:

It’s been darn cold recently, and frankly, the 2KW fanheater in the garage/workshop isn’t much use for rapidly heating the air. It’s ok once the air temp gets up somewhat, but not initially. I have therefore been considering additional temporary heating.

 

Knowing that butane doesn’t like low temperatures, I wondered about a propane heater, especially after seeing what my son-in-law has got  (11Kw output!). However, I also have  two caravan gas bottles (7kg butane), and from my camping days a 1.7KW gas heater/fire and a Grillogaz cooker. The fire and cooker are standby equipment for when we have powercuts, as being all-electric a power-cut can be awkward. I also have a 6kg propane bottle attached to my blow torch.

 

Ideally I would like to run a heater from the same propane bottle, but having looked at costs, I’ve rapidly gone of that idea. Instead I’m now thinking about using the gas fire on butane, but then the low temperature problem kicks in.

 

So, my query is:

If I was to take the two butane bottles into the house and allow them to warm up to household temperature, would they then continue to operate in a sub-zero garage for sufficient time to at least get the air temperature up. The fact that I have the two bottles means that I could alternate between them if necessary.

 

Comments please, and don’t hold back on criticism.

 

One thing I have thought about is the combustion gases. The garage is well ventilated – I have a roller door and there is a large gap along the top where the door cannot fit flush. There is also plenty of ventilation through the eaves and under the rear door into the porch which itself was specifically built to allow for air circulation whilst keeping the rain out.

 

The fire itself, consists of two slightly fan-shaped burners. The flames then are contained in a rather coarse wire mesh which turns orange colour when hot.

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

 

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

[1Participant @1]

It’s darn cold in my garage/ workshop too and I find that the butane gas heater I nicked from Er Indoors fades away when the already low temperature liquid gas gets even colder as the pressure in the bottle drops.  I have found that agitating the bottle at frequent intervals helps but is a distraction when I’m busy.  My alternative is to maintain the bottle temperature at a point where the liquid will gasify easily by pointing a weedy fan heater at it.  One needs to be careful not to create a bomb so a low heat setting and a respectful distance between fan and bottle are necesary but it works and I’m still here to tell the tale.

 

In my garage, like you,  I also have plenty of ventilation so the combustion gases seem not to be a health risk, see “I’m still here …..” .  However, a problem with a gas heater is that one by product of the combustion process is water vapour and lots of it.  You may be warm but the condensation on your cold but expensive machinery could be damaging unless you take suitable precautions.

 

Hope this helps.

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

One problem you will encounter with this form of heating is that burning any form of hydrocarbon fuel will produce water vapour. this will (and I speak from experience here) accelerate surface rusting of all succeptible materiels. All Hydrocarbon fuels such as propane, butane, hexane etc contain significant quantities of Hydrogen and Oxygen which when burned in normal atmospheric conditions rich in Hydrogen and oxygen, will combine to produce water vapour.

 

My advice is NEVER use a propane or butane heat source in a workshop environment unless suitably ventilated.  Our workshops were heated by natural gas but not by direct heating, they utilised a catalytic heating process which produced less than 1% water vapour by volume, significantly less than exhaled by one human being during the working day! So any rusting was our fault and not the heating system

 

I now use Oil filled radiators and tubular greenhouse heaters as background heating in my workshops. Additional heating is then supplied by either fan heaters or radiant halogen heaters for a short term heat burst. The main consideration is to maintain a constant ambient temperature and not let anything drop below the dew point, i.e that point at which water droplets are condensed from the surrounding air and settle on cold surfaces, resulting in rusting of those surfaces.

 

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

One problem you will encounter with this form of heating is that burning any form of hydrocarbon fuel will produce water vapour. this will (and I speak from experience here) accelerate surface rusting of all succeptible materiels. All Hydrocarbon fuels such as propane, butane, hexane etc contain significant quantities of Hydrogen and Oxygen which when burned in normal atmospheric conditions rich in Hydrogen and oxygen, will combine to produce water vapour.

 

My advice is NEVER use a propane or butane heat source in a workshop environment unless suitably ventilated.  Our workshops were heated by natural gas but not by direct heating, they utilised a catalytic heating process which produced less than 1% water vapour by volume, significantly less than exhaled by one human being during the working day! So any rusting was our fault and not the heating system

 

I now use Oil filled radiators and tubular greenhouse heaters as background heating in my workshops. Additional heating is then supplied by either fan heaters or radiant halogen heaters for a short term heat burst. The main consideration is to maintain a constant ambient temperature and not let anything drop below the dew point, i.e that point at which water droplets are condensed from the surrounding air and settle on cold surfaces, resulting in rusting of those surfaces.

 

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

All the above is true, why use butane if it,s cold, swap the bottles for propane,most gas dealers will swap with no trouble. Price is more or less the same, but more heat per lb. from propane. The blower type gas heaters are better, can be bought quite reasonably now, but must have ventilation. I,ve come to the conclusion that ,for the cost difference now, might as well use electricity.

[John OlsenParticipant @johnolsen79199]

Ideally if you are going to burn any sort of hydrocarbon fuel you should have an external flue, rather than venting the products of combustion into the room space. The water produced by the combustion will raise the humidity and will condense out on cold surfaces, which is not exactly what you want in a workshop. On the other hand that is easy enough for me to say, it is summer here at the moment and even in winter it rarely drops below freezing outside. Also since my workshop contains the central heating system, it is as warm as anywhere in the house.

 

regards

 John

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Peter,  I had one many years ago where I once lived that didn’t have central heating, and yes condensation was the next thing I noticed after the heating of the room. Don’t know if mondern ones have improved, but I prefer using an oil filled elecric radiator myself. Disadvantage of course, no instant heat, but the ones I’ve seen are thermastatically controlled, so can be left on low heat to keep the chill off. They can of course be put on a timer to come on shortly before you go into your workshop, if you have some regular times when you know you are going to be in there.

 

Regards Nick.

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Peter, I agree with John Olsen, you must use an externally flued heater.  I would have thought that in the UK the gas mix would be seasonally mixed so that the propane/ butane ratio is altered in the winter.  This of course does’nt help if your like me and have bottles around for too long.

 

   Sorry I think I’m one of the ones that got off track.    Ian S C

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Hi folk,

 

Thanks for the replies. Some comments.

 

Halogen heating.

SWMBO appears to have been brain-washed into thinking these things are any good and has been buying them left, right and centre. For myself, with an electrical background I fail to understand how a heater with (say) 400/800/1200 watt ratings can even begin to compare with say a bar fire with a 1000/2000/3000  watt rating.  I also find them rather bright which suggests to me a loss of power in the form of light. But, I freely admit, I don’t know how they are supposed to work.

 

Electric loading.

I have a 20A, say 4700W, max loading for the garage. With the 2KW fan heater, lathe at 550W, two lamps of 60W, lathe & miller heaters of say 50W, I’m left with 1980W which means that for safety (of the fuse) I’m practically limited to say an extra 1K W of heating. As it happens I do have an ancient 1KW electric convector heater presently residing in the caravan but due to be replaced by one of SWMBO’s halogen heaters. No doubt that could be pressed into service in the garage.

 

Condensation.

I realised early on that I wasn’t going to be able to easily overcome the problems of a single skin garage with a flat roof with a propensity for leaking. I therefore used to spray the lathe with WD40 – messy and smelly. Then I discovered self-regulating heaters so I added a couple to the lathe and lo and behold no more condensation, no rust and the lathe never felt to have that bone chilling cold feel about it. And no more WD40!

Now I was aware of the possibility of extra condensation, hence my intention was to use the gas heater to initially raise the air temperature to something more tolerable and then revert to pure electric heating. Apart from anything else, I rather suspect that 3.7KW  of heating might reasonably quickly become intolerable!

 

Butane v Propane.

Although I have the 6Kg popane bottle, the fittings are totally different inasmuch as the propane is screwed requiring the use of a spanner whilst the caravangas butane bottles are push fit and lever lock if that makes sense. I think therefore that I need to have one or the other, not the possibility of either. And as I’ve already mentioned, having looked into the costings, I rather suspect that I would be looking at the best part of £100 or so to set up propane heaters. I do not think it justified for the odd occasions it may be of use. That’s why I decided against propane. 

 

Semi-permanent background heating.

In my case that would be money thrown away due to the heat loss through the single skin brick walls, the single skin flat roof, and all the ill-fitting doors & eaves. It would be nice to have that luxury, but it is, after all, a garage and at some time in the future, later rather than sooner I hope, it will have to be cleared and then be available for future owners to use as a garage. Which rules out converting it into a nice habitable room.

 

Heating the butane bottle.

I first came across this idea some 50 years ago when a scoutmaster talked about standing butane bottles on a lit paraffin Primus type stove in winter. I hadn’t said anything because of the safety implications,but had wondered about pointing the fan heater at the bottle from a few feet away.

 

So back to my original query. What does anyone think about warming the butane bottles slowly in the house, say overnight, and then using alternately? How long will they last before stopping working?

 

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

Re heating the bottles:- I usually just pour hot water over them, how long that will last depends on temperature and usage (flow rate) amongst other things, but I,m only running a blowlamp of it now. Still say swap to propane, only need a new regulator, might have to adjust the pressure, depending on the appliance.

[Donald MitchellParticipant @donaldmitchell68891]

Hi Engineers,

 

Perhaps newcomers to the list who are reading this particular discussion might like to look at a previous topic, discussed last January, entitled “Workshop Heating” in conjunction to this topic; this one seems to be heading in the same direction re. the burning of hydrocarbons.

 

Happy New Year to all.

 

Donald Mitchell
Castle Douglas
Bonnie Scotland

 

[Ian AbbottParticipant @ianabbott31222]

A styrene box with a low wattage bulb inside is more than adequate to keep a butane bottle happy in cold weather.  ‘Course, ventilation is necessary.

 

An 1800 btu caravan heater vented outside would work a treat, if you can afford to feed its gas habit.

 

I like solid fuel stoves, cheap enough from Machine Mart.  They keep your tea warm too.

 

Ian 

[Ian AbbottParticipant @ianabbott31222]

This is sort of on topic.  Butane bottles.

 

I visited a chap the other week, who was in the process of converting old butane bottles into coal stoves.  Given an angle grinder and welding equipment it’s a simple job.  Mind you, looking at the price of smokeless fuel outside the petrol station, they might not be that cheap to run.

 

Ian 

[Keith Wardill 1Participant @keithwardill1]

I hope this is considered on Topic – it does concern Butane.

 

Up to maybe three years ago I sucessfully used propane for a large burner to melt aluminium in a homebuilt forge for making castings – I never really did any calculations, just found out empirically that there was more than enough heat from my home built burner (based on the published designs from Ron Reil)

However, I now live in Romania, and there ain’t no propane to be had, but butane is easy to get. (I think this is a safety issue – many households here use 11 kg bottle (butane) gas for cooking, which is low pressure, compared to high pressure propane, so probably less risky.)

 

My question is: how does butane compare to propane for use in my forge? After some experimenting, I was able to adjust the burner to get a good ‘blue’ flame, with no noxious smells, etc. However, as yet, I have not had chance to try any serious smelting (outside temperature is down to about -12°C, and I am not going to do this indoors or in winter), so this thread prompted me to ask if anyone had any views on this.

 

Please don’t suggest a change to electrical heating – Romanian house electrical supplies will never stand the required current! (without major repair!)

 

Re Peters question about operating time after overnight warming in the house – I tried this (with a heater), and as you might expect, the answer depends on the temperature in the shed – the colder it was, the faster the butane ‘shut down’ – but during this time, the workshop had also warmed up to some extent, so the butane bottle had not got as cold as the ‘starting temperature’ (hope that makes sense). I would say that (roughly) I got about 2 hours before the butane flow became too slow to be useful, starting with a workshop temperature of 0°C, and the bottle had been in a room heated to about 21°C overnight. The workshop temp at the end of a couple of hours was about 4°C – so not really very effective.  My workshop is about 65 cubic metres, well-insulated, but normally unheated, so over time it drops to outside ambient temperature.

 

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Hi all,

 

Donald Mitchell,

Thanks for that reference. I really must try to see if anyone else has asked a similar question rather than re-invent the wheel!

 

Keith Wardill,

Exactly the sort of answer I was looking for. Which means that if necessary I can use the butane heater in addition to electric just to get the temperature rising. Considering that recently the overnight temperature in the garage will have been well below 0°C at times, then even an hour would help, although I would expect that with the electric on as well the temperature would rise much faster than that. (If it doesn’t, then it’s too darned cold anyway!)

 

Condensation may, or may not, be a problem due to the self-regulating heaters I have fitted to the machinery. Only time will tell.

 

Many thanks to all,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Peter,

 

Propane regulators are les than £5 on Ebay, if you have a Gaz-type fire you can convert it yourself.

 

Neil

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

I think I would start by blocking off those holes and gaps above the roller door,  then go to a charity shop and get some good thick blankets,  and section off that part of the workshop you want to use.  I find that machines get pretty cold and its like having an iceberg in the room with you.  I have used an oil filled electric radiator 1000w left on low all night helps the warm up next day.  Just how much do you want to use on energy ??

 

Wood burners are great, but you need plenty of free dry wood and they need topping up a bit too often – but they are good fun.

 

Insulation and draft stopping should be your first job.

 

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, some usefull info may be found at;

 

http://www.calor.co.uk/customer-services/faqs/the-different…/butane/

 

Butane boils at 0.5 degrees C  and has a natural pressure of about 2 bar and like propane depends upon thermal energy passing through the cylinder wall for the liquid to boil. In cold ambient surroundings there is likely to be a sortfall in this energy to substain continuos use.

 

It is worth looking at the safe use of Butane heaters. there is a PDF on the above website.

 

Regards Nick.

 

P.S. the above website doesn’t seem to work directly. but if you click the google box, its under the heading Butane cylinders- Calor Gas

 

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 07/01/2011 19:41:38

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 07/01/2011 19:49:34

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