Rain affecting gas pressure to Weber Summit NG?


 
D

DKepniss

New member
I have a Weber Summit built-in (natural gas) grill. For the past few years, the grill will not get hot upon lighting it after it rains. For example, if it rained yesterday, today the grill lights but won't get hot. I can't cook food on it. The burners are generally dimmer and the gas pressure seems much lower. I've tried many things to try to overcome this situation:
- Let the grill warm up for a long period of time (an hour).
- Clean the burner tubes
- disassemble the manifold / knob assembly to blow out any potentially-clogged orifices. I used pressurized air and also WD 40. I had called Weber at one point and they said that spider webs can form and they expand with humidity.
- I turn off the local gas shut-off and then purge the gas from the lines inside the grill by turning the knobs. I then turn the gas back on.

I'm struggling to understand which gas components are susceptible to rain / dampness. At this point, I really feel like it is not the grill itself, but the gas supply or perhaps the gas regulator.

I'd be grateful to anyone who can help me diagnose this problem.
 
When I’ve had low gas flow in my 670 NG, I’d shut it all down, including the gas line flow valve, then bleed one burner knob at full open, then close and ensure all knobs are off.

Then I’d open the main NG line and let it build pressure against the grill’s regulator diaphragm for a few minutes so that the diaphragm can equalize to ambient air pressure and temps, then ignite only one burner and see if it gets hot, which it should do immediately.

Once I feel that it’s hot, holding my palm over the grate, then I open the additional valves.

This process has yielded success in the past.

Is this something you’ve already tried?

I am deducing from your explanation that you’re pressure at the regulator diaphragm is not self correcting, thus you’re not going to get the correct flow rate of gas, no matter what you do.

The pressure from your supply line (house gas) must be able to flow through the diaphragm, once the diaphragm regulates to the correct air pressure, in order to deliver the correct burner pressure.

Lmk if you’ve done this and I can think further about my experiences.
 
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This only seems to happen after it rains? Could there be water collecting in the grill somewhere that's keeping the grill from getting hot or restricting air flow to the regulator? If the grill works fine when it's been dry outside I guess I would be looking at water as the culprit somehow. That being said, I wouldn't completely discount low gas flow as the culprit.
 
Respondents thank you so much for the good suggestions! This is a very helpful community. I will try Brett's suggestion first. It is possible that I am rushing the resetting procedure and I like the idea of lighting only one burner. Otherwise, I'm going to replace that regulator to rule it out.
 
LMichaels said:
My guess would be a "leaky" (not leaking gas though) gas regulator. I'll lay odds moisture is creeping in and when gas tries to flow the venturi effect by the metering rod is possibly getting hung up. Give one of these a try https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WTWDPJ4/?tag=tvwb-20
Click to expand...
Does that fit the Summit? The Summit hose line is larger diameter than other Weber NGs. I don’t recall my deets, just asking to reaffirm the correct sizing.
 
I'll check on the inlet size. I suspect it is 1/2", but not sure. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
 
My regulator on my Blackstone acts like that too occasionally and I do what Brett said.
It works and it’s written in the manual too.

I don’t think rain can do that.
I’m not sure about the extreme cold though because that is when it happened to me.
Possibly the regulator doesn’t function well due to weather extremes or some genius thought this was a good safety idea.
I dunno.
 
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