Most of our refills have been in Europe, the last two years mainly France and Spain. After reading about how dirty the gas burns from these countries we returned home in the spring empty to treat it to some good clean 100% propane, which by how black the hob pan supports get is burning dirtier than the EU gas at 20p a litre more. I think in future I will carry on filling over here.
Dirty Gas
- Thread starter manners
- Start date
- Jul 14, 2022
- 24
- 114
- Funster No
- 89,894
- MH
- Pilote P720 Sélectio
- Exp
- Since 2019, +/- 20.000 km per year
We have a truma gas filter installed... would something like that be a solution for you?
scotjimland
LIFE MEMBER
Maybe a problem with the hob rather than the gas , poor combustion , lack of air. Is the flame nice and blue or a dirty yellow ?
OP
OP
I think the filter is to stop oil getting in to the regulator, so probably won't stop the blacking.
Nice blue flame on all the rings and fridge, I think it must be just burning dirtier than the propane and butane mix we normally fill with.
We have used gas from Morocco from various refilled bottles. Spain maybe 7 to 8 repsol bottles. Filled up our refillables in France Spain and Germany and I think once in Belgium all over the UK. Our hob burners and pan stands are as clean as when the van was new . Never cleaned the jets just wiped over with a damp cloth in the normal course of keeping the hob clean. No soot nothing. We don't have a gas filter either.
Maybe your gas jets need a good clean or resetting.?
Maybe your gas jets need a good clean or resetting.?
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Absolutely no problems with gas in Spain nor France. Burns fine. I have now filled the tanks in Ireland, so we shall see if there are any problems with that, but I do not foresee any.
- Dec 2, 2019
- 5,708
- 13,075
- Funster No
- 67,140
- MH
- Rapido 7065+
- Exp
- Broken most bits now
5 years full time with LPG from all over Europe and UK and no problems whatsoever so far with gas on hob, oven, Truma heater or fridge.
One of our hob supports get very black. I think it’s because the frying pan is just a bit too wide, so restricts air. Works ok.
Always fill up in France or Belgium since the UK became anti gas. No soot and no problems. Of sooty I would fit a neg reg
TerryL
LIFE MEMBER
Same here, have filled up all over Europe since we bought our van 16 years ago and never encountered dirty gas or its effects. On the advice of Funsters I fitted a filter before we first went to Morocco, which is inspected every year at hab check and always been clean as a whistle. The only time the regulator was changed was due to age.
Don't know where these stories of dirty gas come from.
Don't know where these stories of dirty gas come from.
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Black under a pan means soot, which is an indicator of poor air/ fuel ratio irrespective of the fuel. The bottom of your storage tank is liquid, as in liquified petroleum gas, and the gas boils off (propane at about -30°C, butane about 0°C, pentane something like 30°C, hexane 60 °C). So any heavy contaminants, like hexane, will remain in your tank and not boil off. So can't blacken your pans anyhow.
I have a Coleman dual fuel cooker that can burn petrol/gasoline (far heavier than LPG) and it burns perfectly clean (as long as i pump the pressure high enough to get a high enough flow to entrain enough air before it enters the mixing chamber ahead of the burners themselves)
So something is happening in the way your stove is mixing the air and fuel leaving not enough air present, so at flame temperatures the propane dehydrogenates (looses hydrogen) and polyerises to form PCAs (polyclinic aromatics), like the tars in cigarettes, which stick to whatever is in their path, like your pans.
I have a Coleman dual fuel cooker that can burn petrol/gasoline (far heavier than LPG) and it burns perfectly clean (as long as i pump the pressure high enough to get a high enough flow to entrain enough air before it enters the mixing chamber ahead of the burners themselves)
So something is happening in the way your stove is mixing the air and fuel leaving not enough air present, so at flame temperatures the propane dehydrogenates (looses hydrogen) and polyerises to form PCAs (polyclinic aromatics), like the tars in cigarettes, which stick to whatever is in their path, like your pans.
OP
OP
The bottom of the kettle does get a slight yellow deposit when you wipe it but no black. The sooty black deposit is only on the ends of the hob supports. It only becomes apparent when either is wiped.
The slight yellow deposit is the precursor to coke/soot. The dehydrogenated hydrocarbons form dimers, two molecules bonded together, tri-mers, etc until poly-mers (plastics, soot, etc).
So your yellow deposit, if left for long enough would become soot. Again think of the yellow deposits on cigarette filters, the half-way formed tars.
Somewhere on there pages that was a table of the quality of LPG supplies across Europe.
Most countries supply a lower quality in the summer than in the winter.
From memory i think is was only the UK and Ireland than provided 20/20 LPG all year around
Most countries supply a lower quality in the summer than in the winter.
From memory i think is was only the UK and Ireland than provided 20/20 LPG all year around
Are you talking about the propane/butane mix? They are both LPG. Butane is not necessarily a lower quality gas, it just stops boiling at low temperatures. In some ways butane is better, it contains 7.8 kWh of energy per litre compared to propane at 7.1kWh per litre.
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OP
OP
I don't think we have a problem as we have always had a slight deposit on the hob stands in every van we've had be it refillable or Calor, I just thought we'd have less using alegidly cleaner UK lpg than EU lpg.
You did not answer the question. CO alarms are very cheap and most last about 7 years. It really is not worth playing Russian roulette with the 'Silent Killer'.
Your risk.... your life. I wish you all the good luck in the world as with the reported poor combustion, I would certainly be taking steps to protect myself and family.
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OP
OP
Thanks for your concern but I never reported poor combustion the flames are blue! If you read my original post I was surprised that the alleged cleaner UK gas leaves the same slight deposits as EU gas. It's not visible soot it's only noticeable on a cloth when wiped.
You have made your mind up even when we know that any soot is a result of incomplete combustion and that is likely to give off CO. I will stop there.
That does not account for a possible leak, or being left on by mistake, or, as has happened to us, somebodies fat arse turning the knob of the hob as they pass through the van.
I would ALWAYS have a working Carbon monoxide (and smoke) alarm in the van, give the small cost of an alarm, it just might save your life.
You will smell a gas leak at very low density down to about 2000ppm. You will not smell CO at any density. Struggling to believe this thread.
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You should smell a gas leak but CO is odourless and unlike the lpg it is not heavier than air so it does not drop out of the motorhome.
Edit: deleted - I'd replied to wrong message
Last edited:
Guess you also don't believe in a tokolshe either, the South African equivalent of the leprachaun, killing people who slept near ground level . . . due to CO:
Tokoloshe - Wikipedia
OP
OP
Guess you also don't believe in a tokolshe either, the South African equivalent of the leprachaun, killing people who slept near ground level . . . due to CO:
Tokoloshe - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
a carbon monoxide detector won't detect a gas leak.
That's correct. a CO 'leak' is very different to CO emissions from a chemical reaction. A CO detector will not detect a leak of LPG, nor I suspect Air, Argon, Nitrogen, Neon etc, because it is designed to detect CO and nothing else.
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