Gas connections

[Bill]

I have often seen trailer caravans with plug-in connections so they can use their gas barbecues outisde, drawing from the van's tank (and for all I know you can get them on motor-caravans too). My thought is to use these to make up "tails", i.e. short lengths of flexible pipe with a regulator agt one end and the connector at the other, to simplify switching regulators on the Continent. Is this feasible? Are there any technical or legal obstacles?

[Derek Uzzell]

I explored this when I began motorcaravanning as it seemed a logical way to swap 'on-bottle' regulators easily. From a technical point of view it's certainly feasible, but I can't confirm the legality. Obviously if you are proposing to DIY the system then it'll be your own responsibility to ensure what you are doing is safe. I'm not too sure where in the UK you'd get the bits needed, but Calor has a wide range of parts if you can lay your hands on a catalogue. (Calor should also be able to advise on the legality.) My French accessory catalogues show a gas stop-tap with 'rapid connector' for around £35 and 'tails' for about £7. Although the concept was technically attractive I never bothered to pursue it. I reasoned that, if I were forced into using a foreign gas-bottle and regulator, there would be little difficulty in removing my existing UK regulator from its hose and replacing it with a foreign regulator. Besides which, I discovered it was possible to obtain (in France) an adapter that would convert a UK propane gas-bottle connection to the French norm and to purchase further adapters that would convert the standard French connection to that of certain other countries. Basically, if I didn't want to replace my UK regulator I should have been able to add various adapters to it to provide a range of different on-bottle connections. I also looked into changing my motorhome's traditional on-bottle 28/37mbar regulator system to one with a bulkhead-mounted 30mbar regulator with interchangeable high pressure tails. It needs emphasising that this is not recommended practice, primarily because the consequential effects are unpredictable. (However, it was amusing to note that in 1999, several years prior to the adoption of the 30mbar standard in the UK, an MMM article had happily described grafting a Truma 30mbar 2-bottle auto-changeover system on to their venerable DIY project 'van with no warnings about potential safety implications or that all the gas appliances should be 30mbar compliant!) At the end of the day I left my motorhome's gas system unchanged and switched to a refillable gas-bottle instead, thus avoiding the need for regulator-swapping.

[Bill]

Thanks Derek

[johnsandywhite]

:-D Hi Bill. Although I have an on-board tank that is good for around 3 months. I usually spend 6 months in Europe. I use a Extend-a-stay-Tee to enable the use of Spanish gas bottles. I use those while in Spain (cheaper anyway) and have the on-board tank as back-up. Here:- http://www.abp-accessories.co.uk/uploadsbig/66-8814.JPG