Duff gas

[Boldly]

Is it possible to get a duff bottle. Not on camper but heater we have at home. Don't use it much since installing underfloor heating but mil coming for Christmas so used up bottle to change for new one. Heater worked fine for three nights till bottle empty. Fetched a new one (spare) on Wednesday and replaced empty one on Friday. Neither of them will burn pilot struggles to light but does eventually. But burner won't light. Is it possibly a duff batch or is the heater f****d? Anyone had anything similar?

 

[Winger]

I’ve never had a problem but read a lot on here where the regulator gives up, probably around €10 or less to replace. I’ve never heard of a duff bottle

 

[jockaneezer]

Might be worth trying a new regulator ? If you're sure there's gas in the bottle, try keeping it somewhere warm for a while, a butane bottle straight out of a freezing garage or shed might struggle to gas off ?

 

[Pausim]

Is it butane or propane and how cold is the room?

 

[Brains]

Butane (blue bottles) is pretty difficult to light below about 6c.
Get the bottle to room temperature and try again.

Hence the reason why cooking stoves for winter climbers are powered by propane (red bottles)

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[Boldly]

It's flogas so yellow bottle butane. One has been in the house since Wednesday the other since yesterday afternoon. Have fitted a new regulator. No change sadly.

 

[Pausim]

It's flogas so yellow bottle butane. One has been in the house since Wednesday the other since yesterday afternoon. Have fitted a new regulator. No change sadly.

How cold is the bottle? Butane gets very sluggish below 5C and as the vapour boils off from the liquid it also cools the remaining liquid even further. Hopefully the heater has a safety device that senses the loss of pressure and shuts it down before it gets dangerous.

 

[Guigsy]

Is it a clip-on adaptor? My previous van came with a butane cylinder and a clip-on. It was fine, but when the cylinder ran out, I switched it and started suffering poor flow. It took me ages to figure it out. The cylinder and the adaptor were both quite worn. If I pushed down on the adaptor, I got full flow. I'm guessing the previous cylinder wasn't as old and it was fully opening the valve? I switched to propane...

 

[Boldly]

Seems just because bottle was left to completely empty the system had become contaminated with air or something. Kept trying to run it and eventually (about two hours) seemed to bleed through and is now working properly. Waste of a tenner for new regulator but at least mil will be warm now

 

[Pausim]

Any contamination in the liquid gas should get left behind when the vapour boils off. Vapour doesn’t carry particulates. However if a full bottle gets tilted I guess some liquid might get into the system. I would want a CO alarm in the room with the heater.

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[Boldly]

Glad you reminded me co2 alarm is in van

 

[Pausim]

Glad you reminded me co2 alarm is in van

CO not CO2 but glad to hear you have one.

 

[TerryL]

I had exactly the same with our mobile gas heater when it ran out of gas. At first I thought that rolling the new bottle rather than carrying it upright may have allowed liquid gas into the pipes but realised that the pilot was in fact trying to light but the gas was coming out too quickly for it - it even blew out a taper I used to try to light it.
Round to our local caravan supplier, £10 for a new regulator and everything was fine. Had to search through my toolbox for a new hose clip as the old regulator (about 40 years old!) wouldn't let go and had to cut it off!
Incidentally it had been working just fine, right up until it ran out of gas.