What is special on the Truma Vs Ordinary Gas Regulator

[mike 202]

I have looked into carrying a spare Truma gas regulator on my trips to France and Spain and the cost is around £45. How ever in an emergency could I just disconnect the Truma regulator and Join the gas pipe fitted in the motorhome to a length of low pressure hose and connect the other end to a normal regulator fitted directly to my 6kg propane bottle. I use the normal regulator with my spare bottle for the Cadac

 

I am aware that Truma is a Europe wide product and my intention would be to source a new Truma regulator ASAP, I am proposing the method above as a purely get me out of trouble without the need to purchase and carry a spare Truma unit.

 

Mike

[tp002c784tp002c784tp]

Hi Mike

 

I carry a spare because of all the trouble others where having with there's, even though I fitted all steel pipes on my Gaslow system, if you do decide to buy a spare buy a Gaslow unit as they are much cheaper and I have been told they are a much better unit than the Truma regulator.

[Derek Uzzell]

There are a couple of (potential) snags with your 'get out of trouble' plan that you might want to consider.

 

1. The gas appliances in your Windsor will have been designed to use a 30mbar butane/propane gas pressure and Truma regulator operates at 30mbar. Unless the "normal regulator" you use with your Cadac is also 30mbar-type, then your gas appliances won't be operating at their correct design pressure.

 

2. The Truma regulator connects to your motorhome's gas pipework via a compression fitting and I'm not sure how easy it would be to connect a piece of low-pressure hose to the pipework using the traditional jubilee-clip method.

 

Having said that, if you are desperate and it's practicable to connect the low-pressure hose to the pipework, I doubt if using, say, a 37mbar(propane) regulator rather than a 30mbar one would be catastrophic.

 

It is possible to obtain 'on-bottle' 30mbar regulators and low-pressure hoses that would connect directly to the type of compression fitting used to attach the Truma regulator. However, I'm doubtful that such items are easily obtainable in the UK and, in any case, you'd be better off just buying a 2nd Truma regulator to keep as a back-up.

[Guest peter]

If you need to carry a spare, get a Clesse. They are much better quality and reliable.

[Derek Uzzell]

In around-2004, when UK leisure-vehicle manufacturers began to switch from 'on-bottle' 28mbar(butane)/37mbar(propane) regulators to bulkhead-mounted regulators, three makes/models of the latter type were employed in this country.

 

Most common was the Truma/GOK regulator, then there was a Cavagna-branded regulator marketed by Gaslow primarily for retro-fitting with their refillable-bottle systems and, finally, there was a Clesse-branded regulator that (to the best of my knowledge) was fitted only to Avondale caravans/motorhomes.

 

The Clesse and Cavagna regulators are shown on

 

http://www.thegaslowcentre.co.uk/magento/gaslow/english/gaslow-butane-propane-30mbar-reg-en12867.html

 

with the Clesse product having Part Numbers 01-1775 or 01-1785, while the Cavagna regulator has Part Number 01-1700.

 

The Truma/GOK regulators have gained a reputation for unreliability and the Gaslow-marketed Cavagna regulators have also been known to fail. Whatever the cause of those failures, it is claimed that the Clesse regulator is immune. It's possible that the more complex 2-stage design of the Truma/GOK and Cavagna regulators makes them more vulnerable to LPG impurities and/or LPG condensates, but that's just a personal guess. Unlike Peter, I'm not sufficiently clued-up regarding the comparative quality of the different regulators, though it's fair to say that, if you wanted to pick a regulator that's statistically most likely to provide reliablility, the Clesse product should be your best bet. It's certainly true that the Clesse and Cavagna products will be a good deal cheaper than the Truma/GOK ones.

 

I hesitate to state the bleeding obvious but, if you are going to carry a 2nd regulator as a back-up spare, you need to consider what will be involved should you need to fit it.

 

I carry a back-up Truma/GOK regulator identical to the one fitted to my Hobby and fitting the spare regulator should take just a few minutes. I also carry the Hobby's original 30mbar 'on-bottle' regulator as a 'last hope'.

 

However, if I carried a Cavagna or Clesse regulator as a back-up, I'd need to consider carefully how straightforward it would be to connect that regulator to the Hobby's gas pipework. Plainly the Cavagna or Clesse regulator would need to be a version suitable for the Hobby's 8mm diameter metal pipework, but it's probable that the fixing brackets' screw holes would not match those of the Truma/GOK regulator.

 

So, if you want to swap to a different make/model of regulator, you'd be well-advised to do that before you set off on your travels and then carry another back-up regulator identical to your new one. Basically, if you wanted to switch from a Truma/GOK regulator to a Clesse one, obtain two Clesse regulators, fit one immediately and carry the second as a spare.

 

Never forget Sod's Law... I recall an instance where a motorcaravanner, having become wary of Truma/GOK regulator failures, chose to carry an identical spare. The original regulator failed while touring abroad, at which point it was discovered that the motorhome manufacturer had pop-riveted the regulator to the metal bulkhead of the gas-locker rather than using screws. What should have been a simple one-for-one regulator swap became an inconvenient and costly visit to a Continental dealership to have the pop-rivets drilled out.

 

In fact, I'm not certain how easy it will be nowadays to obtain a Truma/GOK regulator that's absolutely identical to the one originally fitted to a 2008 A/S Windsor as Truma has revised its regulator range significantly since then. Hence, if you aren't carrying an identical spare regulator when your original packs up working, you may find it's not just a matter of popping into a 'foreign' motorhome/caravan dealership to obtain an exact replacement.

 

And, as a general rule, it needs to be remembered that, if the motorhome manufacturer has originally chosen to fit one of the Truma/GOK 'security' regulators (eg. the Secumotion/Drive-Safe type), then switching to a Cavagna, Clesse, or any other regulator arrangement would remove that security element.

[vindiboy]

I removed the Bulkhead Regulator from my van and fitted a hose tail connection to the feed [ Metal ] pipe on the van and connected low pressure hose to this, I now use bottle Regulators on all my gas bottles, this means that I can now use a bottle from any Country , ie Spain France Germany etc.with the correct regulator for the bottle, OK it means I have several Regulators and have to snip a short length of hose off each time I change bottles for a different type but I can do that easily .I have a TEE piece fitted in the hose so I have two bottles connected and just open the regulator of the full bottle when the one in use empties ,so I then know that I need to get another full bottle, I did have automatic changeover valves fitted originally but I have taken that off also, so now I have a very simple set up that gives no trouble at all, the appliances in my van are all working happily on the various pressures from different Regulators and the rating plates on the appliances confirm that this is OK, so I say keep it simple and you will have no problems.

[crinklystarfish]

Totally agree, the whole bulkhead mounted post 2004 30 mbar regulator scam is pants. Loads of hassles, more expense and ultimately pointless. One of the first things I did with my two most recent 'vans was to rip the 30 mbar regulator out and plumb in twin cylinders with a simple 'old-school' on-bottle regulator on each - they feed the supply system via a simple T-piece. I've run Calor propane, Calor butane and forecourt (refillable) LPG and never had one second's hassle. The on-board appliances, (presumably optimised for 30 mbar - don't really care) have worked perfectly.

There's no way a bulkhead mounted 30 mbar regulator no matter the manufacturer is going anywhere near my current self-build. I need reliability and don't want to pay through the nose for pointless rubbish.

[mike 202]

Really pleased that I posred the question as there are more things to consider than I at first thought.

Thank you all for your replies and advice which I have carefully read.

I thought that all motorhome Truma regulators were the same, so when I go out to the motorhome today I will note any reference numbers and also take a photo so that any Truma replacement will fit.

I will also do a dummy run of how I could fit the LP hose from a bottle top regulator to the LP copper pipe on the vans system. i.e. without actually removing any part of the current system for the trial run.

 

My Propane regulator has a label which states 35mb so am I correct in understanding that this slightly higher pressure will not effect the onboard equipment.

 

Off to Spain in 2 weeks,

Many thanks Mike

[crinklystarfish]

All I can personally attest to is that I've run 37 mbar regulated propane and propane/butane mix through old and new appliances alike without any grief, ever; can't see any real-world reason why 35 mbar is a problem. If you do eventually decide to go old school bottle top regulators then you can buy all the compression fittings you'll ever need from places like CAK. The conversion is not difficult.

I'm still baffled as to what the industry hoped to achieve by the 'harmonisation' that bulkhead regulators were supposed to bring: but didn't. All they brought was avoidable expense and baffling failures.

[Derek Uzzell]

crinklystarfish - 2011-09-22 7:55 AM

 

...I'm still baffled as to what the industry hoped to achieve by the 'harmonisation' that bulkhead regulators were supposed to bring...

 

This is a common misunderstanding.

 

The ‘harmonisation’ you refer to had nothing to do with bulkhead-mounted regulators. It was just an EU-wide agreement that 30mbar should become the regulated gas-pressure standard for leisure vehicles.

 

When the standard was introduced (2002?) the regulated gas-pressure for motorhomes/caravans was 28mbar(butane)/37mbar(propane) or 30mbar(butane/propane) depending on the country in which the vehicle was constructed (or to be marketed in). This meant that gas-appliance manufacturers (eg. Dometic) were producing 2 versions of products, one for the 28mbar/37mbar norm and the other for 30mbar. Dropping 28mbar/37mbar simplified this.

 

Germany had standardised on 30mbar some years previously, so the ‘harmonisation’ had no real impact. Although bulkhead-mounted regulators were already commonplace there, on-bottle 30mbar regulators (with threaded-connector gas hoses) were far from unknown – in fact my 2005 Hobby had one as original equipment.

 

France had been using the 28mbar/37mbar pressures, but French leisure-vehicle regulations had long-since forbidden on-bottle regulators and gas-hose connection using jubilee-clips for motorhomes/caravans constructed/marketed in France. So, in France, harmonising to 30mbar meant just a change from a 37mbar (or 28mbar) bulkhead-mounted regulator to a 30mbar equivalent.

 

Now, the UK leisure-vehicle industry could have complied with the new 30mbar standard by taking the German approach and just using an on-bottle 30mbar regulator. However – and let’s be realistic about this – the traditional UK arrangement involving jubilee-clips and bits of low-pressure hose that people chopped at when they changed regulators could have been fitted to Noah’s Ark. So the decision was made to move to what was essentially the revised French arrangement with a bulkhead-mounted 30mbar regulator securely attached to the leisure-vehicle’s fixed pipework and with a sturdy high-pressure hose (with proper threaded end-connectors) between the regulator and gas bottle. It also needs remembering that the old cheap-as-chips on-bottle regulators could fail ‘hard’ (I recall Richard Cecil, of MTH Autogas fame, telling me of a regulator failure causing a motorhome’s oven-door to be blown off) and the new 2-stage regulators being marketed by Truma and Cavagna protected against catastrophic regulator failure.

 

And things would have been fine (and there would be no argument nowadays about the comparative merits of the old hose & clip system) if the new regulators had not proved to be problematical and people, understandably, lost confidence.

 

Since the harmonisation to 30mbar things have moved on. It’s been agreed that gas-fuelled heaters can be legally operated EU-wide in motorhomes provided that certain safety-related criteria are met. To meet those criteria Truma produced the SecuMotion/Drive-Safe system and, more recently, the MonoControl CS/DuoControl CS products with impact sensors. It’s difficult to see how the safety criteria could be met with an on-bottle regulator and, in any case, you couldn’t sell a motorhome in France with an on-bottle regulator, which is where the potential benefit of legally operating a gas-fuelled heater en route was particularly important. One thing’s certain – a traditional UK hose & clip system would not meet the safety criteria.

 

Although it’s strongly recommended that ‘old’ motorhomes with 28mbar/37mbar appliances are not converted to use a 30mbar-regulated gas supply, I expect it would be OK as long as the unknown-quantity risk is understood.

 

As for switching back from a 30mbar system to use 28mbar or 37mbar regulators (as I think vindiboy has done), I’m not sure if anyone had envisaged this approach. I would have thought it should be practicable to produce a simplified system of the type vindiboy describes, but where the regulated pressure remained at 30mbar, the various components were attached together with threaded connectors, and there was no need to cut hoses. But hey, I’ve some sympathy with a ‘Morris Minor simplicity’ philosophy, so good luck.

[pepe63xnotuse]

This whole "spare regulator" thing,was something I tatted about with a while back(..after reading numerous threads about failing bulkhead reg's)..

I ended up(..thanks to Derek's advice),just carrying a bottle mounted reg'(..which I already had)attached to a length of low pressure hose.The idea being that I would just remove the faulty reg' and then slip this over the olive on the steel "feed" pipe..

 

However,I have since fiited a bbq point inside my gas locker..so I'm now thinking of just rigging things,so that I can connect via that and isolating the reg' by either obtaining a blank plug/cap of sorts or by fitting an inline tap(..although I feel a tap would be slightly OTT.. :-S )

 

Edit: ..and I did check..and the "tech/spec" label inside the fridge/freezer says "P=30/37 mbar"..so I asume the "bottle reg " wont destroy that then..although would only use it as a shortterm "fix"..

[crinklystarfish]

Thanks Derek, I'm gratefully enlightened regarding the industry's intentions; I had indeed misunderstood. I now have a better informed grasp of the unnecessarily expensive and failure-ridden harmonisation exercise.

If my oven door ever blows off, I'll doff my cap to the industry unconditionally.

[Derek Uzzell]

crinklystarfish - 2011-09-23 8:49 AM

 

...If my oven door ever blows off, I'll doff my cap to the industry unconditionally.

 

If your oven door blows off and you happen to be bending down to light it at the time, you may not be able to do any cap-doffing afterwards. ;-) ;-)

[tonyishuk]

I am still undecided weather to let the Truma regulator catch the cr@p that is not supposed to be in the LPG and hoses and treat it as a "disposable" commodity.

 

OR

 

Buy a new super regulator all working under any cr@p conditions and spend a a few pounds having the fridge and heater jets cleared of burnt on cr@p and living with the knowledge that Cr@p exists in the gas lines for next cleanup.

 

Open to discussion ?

 

Rgds

[Derek Uzzell]

tonyishuk - 2011-09-24 6:00 PM

 

I am still undecided weather to let the Truma regulator catch the cr@p that is not supposed to be in the LPG and hoses and treat it as a "disposable" commodity.

 

OR

 

Buy a new super regulator all working under any cr@p conditions and spend a a few pounds having the fridge and heater jets cleared of burnt on cr@p and living with the knowledge that Cr@p exists in the gas lines for next cleanup.

 

Open to discussion ?

 

Rgds

 

It's not really the fridge/heater jets you'd need to worry about, but the 'electro-valves' through which the LPG passes on its way to the jets.

[crinklystarfish]

tonyishuk - 2011-09-24 6:00 PMI am still undecided weather to let the Truma regulator catch the cr@p that is not supposed to be in the LPG and hoses and treat it as a "disposable" commodity.ORBuy a new super regulator all working under any cr@p conditions and spend a a few pounds having the fridge and heater jets cleared of burnt on cr@p and living with the knowledge that Cr@p exists in the gas lines for next cleanup.Open to discussion ?Rgds

I think the discussion has probably been had, there are broadly two choices. 

1. Pay through the nose and stick with a post 2004 bulkhead mounted regulator and be prepared for the further expense and inconvenience of appliance failure that may well result. This will make eurocrats, the industry and analy retentive officials of all other types very happy, or, 

2. Fit and forget an on-bottle regulator system of the type that has for decades - and continues still - to reliably and cheaply power millions of motorhome appliances and portable heaters all over the world. This will make the eurocrats, the industry and said ananly retentive officials quite sad.

It's wise to remember that the world is run by idiots.

After all the fluff, it's (almost) as simple as that really.

[Derek Uzzell]

crinklystarfish - 2011-09-26 8:11 AM

 

...After all the fluff, it's (almost) as simple as that really.

 

No it isn't.

 

If you remove the original bulkhead-mounted regulator from a motorhome and replace it with the traditional UK hose-and-clip on-bottle regulator system, then you've introduced an inferior system from a safety point of view. If the motorhome is Type Approved, then moving to the 'old' system will affect that. And, if the regulator that's been removed was one of the 'safety' type (eg. SecuMotion) then a) you subsequently won't be able to legally use a gas-heater in that motorhome Europe-wide and b) if there were to be a gas-related accident, there's every chance your modification would be considered as evidence of lack of due care on your part.

 

If the world is indeed run by idiots, then what does that make the people who have permitted them to run it?

[crinklystarfish]

Apathetic, disenfranchised, and pretty dim just about covers the main themes. 

I do acknowledge that there is a fair bit behind this subject, not least undoing someone’s carefully conceived TA certification, hence the 'almost’ in brackets. 

On-bottle (and fixed tank) regulators did, and continue to do, a super job worldwide in all sorts of applications, just a few being boats, motorhomes, summer houses, portable heaters, fork-lifts – the list is long. 

I would argue that on-bottle regulators are evidently, given the trillions of cubic metres of gas they’ve successfully regulated, not intrinsically unsafe. Poncing about on the periphery in striving to render something fundamentally not unsafe even less unsafe, seems to me like a fairly pointless pursuit, especially when it means dubious reliability and more expense for the end-user. We see many such pointless enforced ‘improvements’ to our lives, Home Improvement Packs and multi-million pound duff NHS computer systems spring immediately to mind – there are thousands… 

If safety were indeed the primary concern of the industry, they should really be arguing for LPG free motorhomes and driving for diesel fired furnaces and cookers. 

Furthermore, there’s also the issue of the skill and care of the fitter. I remember a certain Mr Mental being most displeased at a professional refillable cylinder installation carried out by the company mentioned earlier in this thread. I may be wrong, and profuse apology in advance if I am, but I seem to recall gas actually leaked from that particular post 2004 system at some point in the installation debacle. It seems rich that the proprietor would warn against on-bottle regulators and then be vicariously responsible for the potential demise of Mr Mental. Forgive me for not falling over myself to heed his advice.

As for SecuMotion, which would be safer in a motorway crash, a cylinder left on or a cylinder turned off? Given the not unforeseeable prospect of cylinders being completely ripped out in a crash, I know which I’d prefer. I’d argue that SecuMotion is actually a retrograde safety step. Turn those cylinders off when hurtling down the road at 70mph please. 

I’m not anti-technological advances by any means but bulkhead mounted regulators set off my clown shoes alarm. I accept they’re here to stay (for now) but I think they’re far better used as a paperweight.

[BGD]

Living in Spain and with a Spanish regd Motorhome, we've got the Spanish push-and-clip-on 30mbar bottle-top regulator with flexible hose, jubilee-clipped to the end of the fixed gas pipe in our MH.

We've space in the MH gas cupboard for two, 13kg butano bottles.

I simply unclip the regulator from bottle "A" when it is empty, clip onto bottle "B", and replace bottle "A" at a Repsol garage sometime later in our travels.

We had exactly the same setup in our previous UK regd MH here in Spain (whicxh we bought here).

 

Works wonderfully, and simply.

Bottle top regulators are cheap and plentiful - you can but them in every DIY store, and in most big supermarkets

 

We've also got the same bottle-top-regulator-and-flexi-hose arrangement on our gas BBQ on the terrace here, and in the last house (like literally millions of other Spanish and Portuguese houses/flats/offices/apartments, 'cos there's no piped natural gas in Spain) we had the same arrangement for our domestic hot water heater; and similar again for our gas hob in the kitchen.

We have the same arrangement too on the several portable gas heaters that everyone here uses during the winter months.

 

This type of bottle-top regulator and flex-pipe is so simple, and so easy to use, and so cheap too.

 

 

I'd never realised until now that there was so much fuss and complication about gas connectors regulators over there in the UK.

 

 

 

[Dave225]

While I fully agree with all the comments regarding cylinder mounted regualtors having used them for decades now I do have to point out that the Regulations have been changed since 2005. All units made after that date must be fitted with a 30 mbar bulkheaded regulator. Removing it could leave you open to a nmber of issues. Firstly no dealer will touch your outfit unless it is returned to the correct specification, even if what is requested has nothing to do with gas. Also if you are pulled over for a roadside check it is conceveable the authorities could decide your outfit is unsafe and refuse to allow you to move until it is returned to the maker's specification. Plus as you have changed your outfit from a specified system, and possibly made it unsafe, your insurance company may refuse to pay out in an event happening.

 

If the regualtor fails in the back of beyond, or abroad and you need to get somehting to work, then you are probably ok to change back to a cylinder mounted system, but to do this as a designated change is not something I would recommend. There are good bulkhead regulators out there and properly installed should be just as effective as anything else.

[Keithl]

But the one change that is perfectly acceptable to post 2004 systems and no-one has yet mentioned (at least in this thread) and that can help prevent regulator failure is the change from rubber to stainless steel high pressure hoses.

I was worried about regulator failure when we bought our AT and as the pigtail was already due for replacement one of my first mods was to swap the rubber pigtail for a Gaslow stainless steel one.

I know that nobody has ever categorically proved the cause of regulator failure but all the evidence I have seen points to the plasticizer in the rubber hose being leached out and blocking the regulator. With a Stainless Steel hose this cannot happen. And, no worries about type approval or invalidating insurance as you can show the mod was an improvement and not a retrograde step.

 

Keith.

[mike 202]

Dave 225,

I understand your comments with regard to the removal of the bulkhead regulator, however there is no need to actually remove the device. Just leave it in position if it fails and disconnect the regulator to motorhome copper pipe and connect a low pressure hose to the copper pipe over the olive.

 

Even if always using a bottle top regulator was considered to be the preferred way to ahead and the intention was never to replace the faulty bulkhead regulator, then if checked and questioned by Police etc the reply " My original regulator has just failed and this is a tempory fix until I can replace the original regulator" should suffice. Whilst I could not condone telling porkies who could prove that a person was being economical with the truth and that the swop was done and in place for weeks/months or even years.

 

I thank all of my fellow thread members for their comments and feel that in an emergency I can safely connect and use my spare bottle top regulator. It gives me peace of mind when travelling especially on my winter sojourns when the loss of the heater and no cuppa would probably present themselves on the coldest day/night when I was without elec hookup on an aire or CS/CL

[Derek Uzzell]

mike 202 - 2011-09-27 10:49 AM

 

Dave 225,

I understand your comments with regard to the removal of the bulkhead regulator, however there is no need to actually remove the device. Just leave it in position if it fails and disconnect the regulator to motorhome copper pipe and connect a low pressure hose to the copper pipe over the olive...

 

I'd be wary of how practicable this would be.

 

I would anticipate that, to be able (in an emergency) to gain adequate access to the end of the metal gas pipe that the regulator normally connects to, you'd need to take the regulator off the bulkhead. To be able to push the end of a low-pressure flexible hose over the pipe/olive without removing the regulator implies that there would be sufficient 'slack' in the metal pipework to withdraw the pipe/olive a reasonable distance from the regulator's outlet. Either that, or the intention would be to bend the pipe to gain access to its end.

 

This ploy would not be practicable on my Hobby and, as the Hobby's gas pipework isn't copper (I don't know what it's made of - just that it's bloody hard!) bending it wouldn't be an option either.

 

Perhaps you've confirmed that your Windsor's gas system does allow the type of emergency 'bodge' you've described without actually removing the regulator but, if not, I suggest you check that it's actually possible with your motorhome.

 

As I said right at the beginning, I don't think there's any great risk in doing this, but it would be wise to confirm now rather than later how easy it is to do. Similarly, if your present Truma regulator failed, and your plan was to obtain an identical replacement ASAP, it would be wise to be aware that Truma has made regulator design revisions since 2008 (eg. current regulators have integrated 90-degree 'elbow' outlets).

[mike 202]

Derek,

Thanks for your advice, I will check exactly as you suggest and also look up the model number for my fitted bulkhead regulator and E-mail Truma to find out the most direct replacement in the case of failure.

 

This subject was raised because my friend had his fail on a 2 year old A/S, which set me tto think and plan ahead - Just in case !!!.

 

Kind regards Mike :-)

[tonyishuk]

Derek Uzzell - 2011-09-25 10:06 AM

 

 

 

It's not really the fridge/heater jets you'd need to worry about, but the 'electro-valves' through which the LPG passes on its way to the jets.

 

 

You mean I have more to worry about ? :D

 

rgds