Gas bottle shenanigans, what next?!

[Dowel]

Mine has no fittings on the ends, it is just a plain hose that pushes on and is then secured/tightened with a jubilee clip.

So, these seem to be the ideas:
- Try another Intermarche to get the (in theory definitely correct) regulator.
- Stop into Narbonne on the way South.
- Mr Bricolage, ditto.
- Buy another bottle, Butane this time.
- Cut the screw fitting off one end of a hose.

Great, plenty of things to try! Thanks guys!! If anyone has anything to add please do but I'll start working through that lot.

I wonder why all your advisors keep writing about cutting the end off?

If as stated above it is a hose, push fit and secured with a hose clip, why not just loosen the clip to release the end fitting. take the kit of parts into one of the potential suppliers listed above so they can find something to fit.
Presumably a local bottle and a regulator to fit is all you require.
We haven't seen a photo yet but from what I have read you do not need to do anything to the appliance end.

Don't let yourself believe that moving a hose from one fitting to another is at all difficult. Go for it Lindsay.

 

[QFour]

You have destroyed your gas safety check as you are now traveling round with a gas bottle not stored in a correctly sealed box. If you could take the old one apart it was hardly secure. Have you got any holes under the bottle to let out an escape of gas to the outside world. LPG Gas when it leaks settles at the lowest point which is why you need holes in the bottom of your gas locker.

Whatever you do will invalidate your gas safety check as you or someone else will have altered the fittings. Only way out of that is to get the gas safety check done again.

If you are careful and follow the advice given about checking for leaks you will be fine. Soapy water bubbles if you have a leak. You may find that no one will want to screw fittings together for you as they are not qualified to do so and if you had an accident they could be liable.

You could look for a MH Dealer with a workshop and get it all checked again but they may refuse as the bottle will not be in a correct housing and they would then be liable if anything went wrong.

..

 

[Nabsim]

Hold on. You don’t need a gas safety check it’s for peace of mind and then only if it’s a competent person. If the van has been looked at and okayed by a competent person then it should have holes for gas to escape.

Nobody is on about cutting appliance fittings here from what I have read they are referring to what sounds like pigtails Lindsey is being offered in places she goes. It is as simple as getting a new regulator fitted to existing pipe work. And that’s simple to someone who knows but not to someone who doesn’t who also has a language barrier. Let’s not complicate it any more than that

Pity you couldn’t have got Charlie to look at Hereford Lyndsey he could have told you what you needed ;(

 

[QFour]

Lindsay was saying that she does not want to do anything that will alter her gas system as she had a gas safety check done. I was just pointing out that by altering anything to do with the gas system you invalidate the gas check. I know you don’t need one and that it’s easy to check the connections yourself and the MH Dealers do not employ Gas Enginners just monkeys who have read a couple of sheets of A4 usually In Romanian ..

 

[Dowel]

The one thing I could see was that none of them was going to fit my hose. Several of the butane ones came with adaptors that seem to change the screw fitting on the regulator to a push fit one like my current reg has. :

This is what prompted my post. Apologies Lindsay if I have caused you further confusion.
My assumption is that you have a regulator connected directly to the bottle, NOT a regulator bolted to the wall of the gas compartment.
So I further assume that you want a new french bottle with regulator connected directly.

What I can gather is this - you can't get Propane regulators to fit on my gas hose. You would need the adaptor and these are not sold for propane regulators as the higher pressure means you need a screw fit. This is my best guess at what he was trying to say and why neither the Intermarche nor the DIY shops could help me.
So what do I do?!? Should I go back and exchange my propane for butane? I've had to open the propane bottle to look at the connection. Also, will the regulators in the DIY shops fit my bottle and if so how do I know which one? There are a few different types (and they all say for 13kg bottles on them and mine is 9kg).
:

The gas pressure on the outlet from the regulator, butane or propane, is very low (measured in millibar) compared to that in a full bottle (maybe 6 to 12 bar depending on temperature) so you need not worry about the hose being secure with jubilee clips or similar. A common size for LP gas hose is 8mm internal diameter, there are other sizes.

How long are you going to be in France? If not long because moving south to warmer climes or coming back home you will probably be ok with Butane. Butane stops turning into gas at around 4 degrees C.

If you cannot sort this immediately you could simply buy a Camping Gaz 907 cylinder with its little regulator. Never tried to buy one outside of UK but am told it is very commonly available and much cheaper there than in UK. They don't hold a lot of gas but could tide you over for cooking at least until you find a french merchant with more expertise or choice.

 

[Channa]

Lindsay was saying that she does not want to do anything that will alter her gas system as she had a gas safety check done. I was just pointing out that by altering anything to do with the gas system you invalidate the gas check. I know you don’t need one and that it’s easy to check the connections yourself and the MH Dealers do not employ Gas Enginners just monkeys who have read a couple of sheets of A4 usually In Romanian

..

How disrespectful !!! gas engineers in a dealer are qualified to at least ACS standard on the basis most dealers hire for reward which involves several exams and separate modules for leisure accommodation vehicles. the old ACOPs exam involved 21 modules which most mobile fitters have

As for invalidating gas checks by altering anything in the system, you better not change a bottle then ..you ARE breaking into the gas system technically,,so someone incompetent could well not re connect correctly

Channa

 

[QFour]

As for invalidating gas checks by altering anything in the system, you better not change a bottle then ..you ARE breaking into the gas system technically,,so someone incompetent could well not re connect correctly

Channa

I am not the one who took the gas locker to bits so they could get a bigger bottle in. The parts that are left for the owner to undo are made in such a way that they are safe. If you want to start altering piping and fittings then you are altering the system and therefore the Gas Check that was done would not be valid.

You maybe right about Dealers having gas enginners but as far as I am concerned the NCC Dealers local to me are a complete and utter nightmare and have been for many years. They keep saying they are improving but they are still 30 years behind the standards you would expect from a car dealership.

..

 

[witzend]

I haven,t read all replys but a french butane regulator will fit a french propane bottle and work

 

[Caz]

I'm a bit confused by Lindsay's need for a regulator as her van is newer than mine, which has a permanently fixed regulator - I think caravan/motorhome builders started using them in the early 2000s, commonly called bulkhead regulators.

Before going to France last year I checked the sizes of the French bottles, Le Cube seems to be the smallest they do apart from Campingaz. My van was built for 2 x Campingaz 907 bottles, but I can squeeze in 2 x Calor 3.9 Kgs propane - but Le Cube are fatter so will not fit.

So instead I took out one Calor bottle and replaced it with an empty 907, which I got refilled in France at half the UK cost.

Thanks to help from members on here, I sorted out that I needed a different pigtail - the short bit of pipe with a screw fitting each end to join the regulator to the bottle, as the 907 screw fitting is different to the Calor one. I was able to get one of these in the UK before leaving, and I took an adjustable spanner with me for the changeover.

Sorted.

Thanks again to the folk who helped me out last year.

 

[Channa]

The pressure inside a (not empty) propane or butane bottle depends on its temperature. Nothing else.

Both are liquids in the bottle, held under pressure. When you let some gas out, more of the liquid boils to a gas to replace it and bring the pressure up again.

The actual "storage" pressure varies a bit between the two gases, but the pressure change due to temperature changes is much bigger.

When it comes to burning the gas, it used to be that propane was delivered at slightly higher pressure than butane, which allowed the less strong propane to give as much heat. And there were different standard "burning" pressures for each gas.

However, about ten years ago there was a move to "regularise" pressures. With that came bulkhead-mounted regulators, which required high pressure hoses from bottle to regulator and caused no end of hassles with regulators gumming up. But I digress...

The idea nowadays is that propane and butane have the same "burning" pressure (which requires compromises in jet design).

In the UK, propane and butane have different bottle fittings, but that's not true everywhere else.


The "pigtail" from bottle to regulator will probably be different for propane and for butane in the UK, but may be the same in France. But you only use a pigtail if you don't attach a regulator to the bottle.

A photo of your current setup would clarify your situation..

The European standard to which you allude to is 30mbar on leisure accomadion vehicles everything else runs at the old values of 28 and 47 mbar .There is still a lot of stuff in Italy that runs on variable regulators maxing out at 50 mbar the same as the old German standard

Re jetting new jets are required on the older Hymers as often fitted with german spec. More up to date, jets will operate comfortably on 28 /37 old standards and the 30 mbar which is current standard

re propane and Butane I lived in Beziers on the Med and often went to work winter months temps of -1 and a good ground frost. Furthermore in February when we started to gas test vans for the summer we had to carry propane to do the job, whe visiors arrived the systems were butane Easter onwards

Channa

 

[Dowel]

You would need the adaptor and these are not sold for propane regulators as the higher pressure means you need a screw fit. This is my best guess at what he was trying to say and why neither the Intermarche nor the DIY shops could help me.

@ runnach: I hope you didn’t really believe that but it makes a neat put down. LindsayH infers that a propane connector was not available to her because the pressure of propane was "believed to be" too great for a push on pipe secured with a jubilee clip. Of course the clip(s) should be adequately tight.

We could all be barking up the wrong tree. Does Lindsay have a wall mounted regulator and is she really in need of a high pressure pigtail to connect a new french bottle? Surely that is too simple?

I second Nabsim and hairydog’s suggestion of a photograph of the installation.

 

[LindsayH]

You have destroyed your gas safety check as you are now traveling round with a gas bottle not stored in a correctly sealed box. If you could take the old one apart it was hardly secure. Have you got any holes under the bottle to let out an escape of gas to the outside world. LPG Gas when it leaks settles at the lowest point which is why you need holes in the bottom of your gas locker.

Whatever you do will invalidate your gas safety check as you or someone else will have altered the fittings. Only way out of that is to get the gas safety check done again.

If you are careful and follow the advice given about checking for leaks you will be fine. Soapy water bubbles if you have a leak. You may find that no one will want to screw fittings together for you as they are not qualified to do so and if you had an accident they could be liable.

You could look for a MH Dealer with a workshop and get it all checked again but they may refuse as the bottle will not be in a correct housing and they would then be liable if anything went wrong.

..

When I say 'taken it apart' I mean removed the gas bottle securing device and refitted it so the bigger bottle can now be accommodated, and taken out a shelf that was in the gas locker to create a bit more room. I really don't want to change any fittings myself as stated above. The gas safely inspector said it was fine to change the regulator myself and that was always as far as I ever intended to go. Of course it has a floor vent, it would never have passed otherwise - it has two and the inspector impressed the importance to me of always making sure they are clear

 

[Channa]

He wasn't Romanian then ?

Channa

 

[LindsayH]

I have gas, wooooooooooo!!!!! Sorry I have taken a few days to reply, I had no internet and then I flew back to the UK for a couple of days for a funeral. Lyon airport is a b****y nightmare! Anyway, I eventually managed to convince an Intermarche lady to sell me a bottle of butane, although there was much confusion. I gave her back the full bottle of propane which was a bit galling, I wish I could have waited for someone to come and buy some so I could give it to them but there we go. I then went into the store and bought the regulator - just like that! Once again, the butane regulators came with the little adaptors and the propane ones didn't. It was a bit of a faff to get the old reg off, but got there in the end. It was VERY rewarding to turn on my gas and make a cup of tea. So I am now the proud owner of the most expensive and hard won bottle of gas in the world, and this can now officially become the 'hilarious' story of the first time I tried to buy gas in Europe
Thanks everyone for your help and support, as always, you guys are fab x

 

[Les Haro]

so short-sighted foreigners can read it ?

You are the foreigner when you leave home, which is the crux of the biscuit.

 

[Caz]

Pleased to hear you got sorted out in the end Lindsay.