redlorry321
Free Member
Hi, as a new member I wanted to seek other member advice but also to flag a warning. When I bought my used motor home I had it fully serviced, new MoT and also paid for a habitation check which included all gas appliances and fittings. Everything seemed to work fine and I went for a 3 day break to check all was well with the motor home. This was a prelude to a 2 month tour of Europe down to southern Italy. I'd filled up the twin LPG gas cylinders at Dover and started my tour. The following week I was going through the lower Alps in Provence en route to Nice. As I was tired from the driving, I pulled over in an Aire and went for a sleep on board. I started to wake feeling extremely groggy - the cabin was full of gas - I barely made it out and collapsed on the grass outside. It was a very hot summer's day with outside temperatures in excess of 30 degrees C. When I eventually felt well enough to get up, I checked the 2 LPG gas cylinders and both stop cocks were fully turned off and shouldn't have leaked gas.
I got no support from the provider of the Gas equipment (not mentioning any names at the moment) and it left my confidence badly shaken, not to mention if I hadn't woken up in time I probably wouldn't be writing this now!
Eventually, when I returned back to England, the gas equipment provider investigated and found that both Gas safety stop cock valves had been screwed down TOO FAR and impacted on the internal safety mechanism. Every cylinder has a mechanism which is located internally that allows filling with LPG to 80% only. The remaining 20% is a margin of safety. The engineer told me that because the stop cock valves had been screwed down all the way (should have stopped about 1 cm from the end) then this prevented the safety mechanism from being activated and as a result both tanks became over pressurised to 100%. The engineer told me that this is likely to have happened at their factory and when I got to the south of France the higher temperatures probably triggered the regulator to discharge the gas. He also found there were several holes in the compartment that vented to the inside of the cabin - again a poor installation.
I'm not sure what I can do in this situation as the gas equipment provider wants to wash their hands of it and hush it up. The Gas Habitation check never picked up on this, even though I got a nice certificate saying everything was safe and in order - so left me with a ticking time bomb. Potentially, I don't think most motorhomers would know about this at all - there is a lot of trust from the consumer on the providers to get it right - but mistakes are made. So all I can ask is that members who read this get their gas cylinders double checked to make sure the stop cock valves on top of each cylinder are adjusted and sealed to the correct distance from the top of the cylinder housing to allow the safety mechanism inside to operate correctly to 80% of max pressure. I foolishly believed that once the stop cock valves had been tightened to the fully closed position i.e. shut off fully, that there could be no escape of gas. This is not the case and the gas regulator system will still allow gas to escape even with these stop cock valves fully closed.
There have been fatalities due to faulty gas equipment - last year I read that a family were killed by this type of event whilst sleeping on a boat. The gas equipment supplied is similar.
So all I can do is flag this as a warning based on my own experience. I would welcome constructive comments from the forum. RedLorry321 (new to site)
I got no support from the provider of the Gas equipment (not mentioning any names at the moment) and it left my confidence badly shaken, not to mention if I hadn't woken up in time I probably wouldn't be writing this now!
Eventually, when I returned back to England, the gas equipment provider investigated and found that both Gas safety stop cock valves had been screwed down TOO FAR and impacted on the internal safety mechanism. Every cylinder has a mechanism which is located internally that allows filling with LPG to 80% only. The remaining 20% is a margin of safety. The engineer told me that because the stop cock valves had been screwed down all the way (should have stopped about 1 cm from the end) then this prevented the safety mechanism from being activated and as a result both tanks became over pressurised to 100%. The engineer told me that this is likely to have happened at their factory and when I got to the south of France the higher temperatures probably triggered the regulator to discharge the gas. He also found there were several holes in the compartment that vented to the inside of the cabin - again a poor installation.
I'm not sure what I can do in this situation as the gas equipment provider wants to wash their hands of it and hush it up. The Gas Habitation check never picked up on this, even though I got a nice certificate saying everything was safe and in order - so left me with a ticking time bomb. Potentially, I don't think most motorhomers would know about this at all - there is a lot of trust from the consumer on the providers to get it right - but mistakes are made. So all I can ask is that members who read this get their gas cylinders double checked to make sure the stop cock valves on top of each cylinder are adjusted and sealed to the correct distance from the top of the cylinder housing to allow the safety mechanism inside to operate correctly to 80% of max pressure. I foolishly believed that once the stop cock valves had been tightened to the fully closed position i.e. shut off fully, that there could be no escape of gas. This is not the case and the gas regulator system will still allow gas to escape even with these stop cock valves fully closed.
There have been fatalities due to faulty gas equipment - last year I read that a family were killed by this type of event whilst sleeping on a boat. The gas equipment supplied is similar.
So all I can do is flag this as a warning based on my own experience. I would welcome constructive comments from the forum. RedLorry321 (new to site)