Propane stove burner flame turned orange today - why?

Patchogue Phil_2

It was normal blue this morning. Now it's orange. What's that mean? Nothing has changed. Doesn't smell either. Moisture / humidity in air too high?

I've been googling reasons. Most talk of dirt or rust. No idea how dirt or rust can suddenly appear. Not an outdoor situation.
Tank was filled last month. It's mostly full still. Been using propane everyday between oven, stove and clothes dryer. Nothing has changed. Except maybe outdoor temps are yo-yo-ing lately & higher humidity. Every burner the same color.

Ideas?

ratio

Dust in the air? How long has it been orange now? It's burning improperly, but I don't know if it's "turn it off NOW" improper or "we'll be out tomorrow" improper.

JUGHNE

Time and gas both pass quickly, are you sure the tank has plenty of gas? Heard of this when the tank is almost out, which would be low pressure.....also caused by bad regulator/s.

Patchogue Phil_2

I personally checked the tank, it's mostly full.

ChrisJ

Well,
I don't know why it's orange, but at least it's not green. That'd be bad. Real bad.

Patchogue Phil_2

If you are serious, what would a green flame mean?

ratio

Burning copper. The opposite of good for you.

ChrisJ

Patchogue Phil said:

If you are serious, what would a green flame mean?

I believe a Freon (R12, R22 etc) leak causes green flames and it produces phosgene gas. Perhaps other refrigerants do as well, I don't know.

Either way, don't burn refrigerants.

So if you had an A/C leak in the building, it could cause green flames and it'd be really bad.

Patchogue Phil_2

Nope, no Freon let loose in the house. Doubtful there's any burning cu either.

Maybe a spider blocking air inlet but it's all the stove burners.

EBEBRATT-Ed

Has someone been sweeping, vacuuming or cleaning? Dust in the air can do this

Zman

Mine will do that if the burner cover gets bumped or if the debris get trapped under it.
Give it a good cleaning and see what happens

lchmb

usually with propane we get the complaint of an orange flame after a fill up. If the driver moves the pigtail at the tank or the line supplying the house it will do this. If someone moved the line inside the house, it will do this also...generally not an issue. If however you have any propane odors please call your supplier as this could indicate a leak...even a small one should be fixed asap...

Patchogue Phil_2

Nope no propane smells. No sweeping dusting etc. All covers on all 5 burners okay.

This evening, all burner flames are 90% back to normal blue.

I'm stumped.

Patchogue Phil_2

> @lchmb said:
> usually with propane we get the complaint of an orange flame after a fill up. If the driver moves the pigtail at the tank or the line supplying the house it will do this. If someone moved the line inside the house, it will do this also...generally not an issue. If however you have any propane odors please call your supplier as this could indicate a leak...even a small one should be fixed asap...

Is this because of some particulate matter inside the lines gets to the burners? I wondered if it was moisture here, somehow got from the tank to the burners.

Leonard

Had that happen while visiting a friends house, but I think his flame was yellowish instead of the normal blue. Fumes were burning my eyes too. Hunted it down to low propane pressure.

It was spring and water dripping off roof was splashing onto propane reg's vent under tank cover and freezing it over. I wanted to use a hairdrier to melt it, but my friend was a fire chief and nervous about sparking a propane fire, even though there was no propane leak. So for safety we ended up using a window box fan to blow away any possible propane accumulation and he let me melt the ice with a hair drier. We kept hair drier intake upstream of air flow past reg so it could not inhale propane in case it sparked. As soon as ice melted and vent was free then flame was normal again.

I folded up some aluminum foil and made a tent over the reg vent so water wouldn't splash on it and ice up again. Worked perfect.

Tim McElwain

Orange flames are usually an indication that rust or dust has been stirred up. The dust from the area of the air shutters on the burners, rust from with the piping system.

Sometimes propane will do this right after the tank got low and then it was filled. The filling loosens up rust that might be inside the tank. It can also be a case of moisture that was in the recent fill could cause that to happen. Have the LP company put some methanol in the tank that will usually take care of it.

The end of all this orange does not cause an unsafe condition that would be if the flame was yellow. Usually the orange will go away after a short time.

Patchogue Phil_2

> @Tim McElwain said:
>
>
> The end of all this orange does not cause an unsafe condition that would be if the flame was yellow. Usually the orange will go away after a short time.

Good to hear this. Thanks for the info.

lchmb

What Tim said....man has a ton of knowledge..;)

Patchogue Phil_2

Flame is back to being all blue, textbook perfect color.

flat_twin

I saw this happen with an antique white gas radiant heater in my garage after I swept the floor. Blue flames became yellow until the dust settled down.

Patchogue Phil_2

In my case it wasn't dust in the air. Likely moisture in the propane.

Marilyn1951

I just moved into a mobile home that uses propane, so I'm very new at all this..I have been seeing alot of orange flame.. The propane tank is used by a whole row of mobile homes... Should I be worried.... All burners are orange with just a little blue at the bottom..

JUGHNE

Do the neighbors have the same orange flames?

Jamie Hall

Marilyn1951 said:

I just moved into a mobile home that uses propane, so I'm very new at all this..I have been seeing alot of orange flame.. The propane tank is used by a whole row of mobile homes... Should I be worried.... All burners are orange with just a little blue at the bottom..

Two quick questions. First, do you have a CO detector along with your fire alarm? If not, get one and install it.

Second, is the flame orange or yellow? That's not trivial. Orange usually is contamination of some kind -- it's sodium or calcium ions, to be technical. Yellow, however, may indicate poor combustion, which you want to get checked out.

Solid_Fuel_Man

Try opening windows and allow fresh air to the burners and see if the color changes. As @Jamie Hall said the orange can be caused by calcium or sodium ions from a humidifier or local water supply etc.

psb75

From Vermont: during a long deep cold spell in Dec. Jan. this winter I experienced several new gas mod/con boilers throwing a fault code, "ignition not happening". Turned out the "regulators were frozen." Recently I had someone explain that during this cold spell the LP supplies were so low at the main depots that they were drawing up water from bottom of the big tanks. Local suppliers were then delivering some water along with LP to their home accounts. THAT water would then freeze up the home regulators.

lproulx

Had this happen with natural gas and an ultrasonic humidifier in the house. Shut off humidifier and flames cleared up in an hour. Don't know why - maybe same reason flames burn orange when you spill water on the stove.

ToastyinVermont

Our propane supplier told us that in the winter they add methane to the liquid propane to keep it from freezing. The presence of methane can turn the flame on the range top orange. Maybe this was a load of malarkey but that's what they told us. They're also sending someone out to check our tank for any issues.

Leonard

ultrasonic humidifier ...... issue with them is they put tiny droplets of tap water into the air. After water droplets evaporate your left with TINY specks of minerals that were in that tap water. They are so small they continue to float in air. When they get to the flame they turn the fire different colors depending on what element is in them ( likely calcium, sodium, ect ...) . Just like you did in high school chemistry lab experiments.

If look around the humidifier you'll likely see white dust. It's the larger mineral specks that did fall out of the air. Some people say this tiny dust is bad for your lungs, and should use distilled water.

Tim McElwain

Methane is natural gas and is not added to propane to the best of my knowledge. Methanol however is added to prevent freeze ups of fuel in cold weather. Its purpose is to dry up any water in the fuel.

Leonard

Sometimes old street low pressure ( 11"WC) nat gas lines get rust pin holes and underground water weeps into the pipe. It's warm underground so it evaporates to water vapor. In winter this water vapor can freeze inside gas meters and valves that are outside and stop therm from working. We had that happen, damaged our $300 HVAC valve

. So until gas co can repair pipes in summer they might put a methanol canister by gas meter and bubble nat gas thru it to dry it out. Don't know what color that burns.

Mellieha

Question to Patchogue Phil_2: Are you living close to the sea?
I made a similar observation: My blue flame gas burner has an orange flame since this morning. I checked CO level (=0) and my current thought is, that the reason is the storm we have since last night (> 70 km/h) and the fact that we are living close to the sea (< 30 m). So either my burner broke over night or what I am seeing is the nice orange color of NACL.

Patchogue Phil_2

I live very close to the Great South Bay on Long Island NY. It could be humidity in the air.

Intplm.

Patchogue Phil_2 said:

In my case it wasn't dust in the air. Likely moisture in the propane.

Hey @Patchogue Phil_2 This has happened to me a few times. The orifice probably got a little bit of cooking debris in it. It is a cooktop . Was told by a appliance tech years ago to stick a pin in the orifice to clear it. I objected. Gave it a second thought and now it works every time.

Patchogue Phil_2

Orifice is protected. Orange went away on its own with no intervention.

Leonard

Guessing little food crud spilled on burner and eventually burned off. When I start my outdoor propane grill I sometimes get ~ orangeish , don't notice it anymore after steak is cooked and burner is red hot ~ 15 minutes. I forget maybe salt makes orange or is it yellow. Didn't pay much attention, it's outside , so fumes didn't matter.

Remember my wife's 1-st time roasting a chicken on the grill outside , was absolutely no wind, and humidity made smoke hang in the air. Neighborhood was solid white smoke from dripping chicken grease.....

Jamie Hall

A rather striking, intense orange slightly off to yellow is sodium -- once you've seen it and really recognized it, you'll never forget it. And it takes remarkably little sodium to give the colour in a flame.

Patchogue Phil_2

Was nothing blocking any orifices. Was one of the first things I checked. Plus it happened on all five burners.

Patchogue Phil_2

My guess is moisture. Especially on an outdoor BBQ grill burner.

crosbygas

Using Albuterol Sulphate in a Nebulizer for a lung treatment will turn the flame orange. It only took me 5 years to figure this out!
It's the sodium in the vapor.

DebiLynne

My brand new propane wall heater was burning completely orange flames. The propane guys were out here for almost 2 hours and nothing was wrong. They added a new regulator, checked lines and everything. That night I turned off my humidifier and next morning all blue flame. Turned humidifier back on and all orange flame again. It seems we must have a lot of minerals in our well water that changes the color of your flame as they burn off. Switched to distilled water and everything is fine!😊