Help
Hi everyone , we have come away today for a long weekend got to site ,,et up and went to put lunch on but can't get cooker to work , you can hear gas coming out of the rings for about three seconds then fades away , have swapped to a full bottle , checked
all the taps are the right way but can't get a solid feed , could it be the regulator and is there anything I can do , using propane so not a temperature problem . caravan is a 2010 swift challenger 540 tia
Comments
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hi. it sounds to me like it could well be the thermocoupler on the ring its a small bore copper pipe with a brass end if its gone thats exactly what its designed to do .cuts off the gas .ime afraid you will need to replace it .ime almost certain thats the
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It could well be the regulator,it was a known problem on earlier vans,if the regulator is below the height of the cylinder,as the liquid gas has a habit of having a tar like substance that can run into and gunge up the regulator, it seems less of a problem on later built vans as they tend now to have the regulator fitted higher up above the cylinders now,
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Thanks jvb for replying it's a bit annoying as I've come away for 4 nights , it worked fine when last used back in August , I wondered if it was a bit sticky with sitting for a while , I wondered if I could warm it up with something to see if that would
unstuck it0 -
The first thing to check is do any other appliances work on gas. If the regulator has gone it is a very simple swap, bearing in mind the need to be "competent" when working on gas.
If you don't fancy doing it I bet the site owner knows of a mobile guy who will do it for you.
Don't try warming it up with anything.
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Have you tried the heater or water heater on gas? If these don't work on gas either then the Truma regulator is most likely the problem. I had two fail on our last caravan, a 2009 Elldis, one at two years and one at just over three years. Then replaced with
a Gaslow.0 -
Does your oven have a glass lid/cover? Some have a safety valve such that the lid needs to be completely open for the hob & oven to work ie shuts gas off if you were to close the lid
We had this problem early on in our motorhoming days. My only other question is are you on red or blue bottled gas? I know the blue containers don't work so well in the cold weather. Sorry it's not more technical, I just know they hold different sorts
of gas
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.... My only other question is are you on red or blue bottled gas? I know the blue containers don't work so well in the cold weather. ...
Red is propane, blue is butane. We used butane for years and caravaned in 6" of snow with no freezing of gas bottle problems ..... it needs to much colder for it to freeze in the bottle
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.... My only other question is are you on red or blue bottled gas? I know the blue containers don't work so well in the cold weather. ...
Red is propane, blue is butane. We used butane for years and caravaned in 6" of snow with no freezing of gas bottle problems ..... it needs to much colder for it to freeze in the bottle
The freezing point of Butane -140 celcuis so that's not going to happen. However Butane struggles to turn gas much below 4c. Which is why people who know what they are talking about use propane in the winter.
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.... Which is why people who know what they are talking about use propane in the winter.
I know that we never had a problem even when there was snow on the ground. The only time it was a problem was a few winters back when it was brass monkey weather for months & SWMBO wanted to use the caravan oven as an over flow Christmas dinner oven
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firstly confirm you have no incoming gas supply by testing with the fridge, this should fire up straight away on gas.
if not, and you say theres nothing at the heater either, then its the regulator or some other form of blockage.....no gas taps turned off at the end of your last trip?...
either way, good luck.
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You are lucky you have a single electric ring - many don't. I do carry a two plate electric plug-in hob all year and a 3kw fan heater as well in winter. Your predicament has persuaded me to keep carrying them.
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I had a similar problem earlier this year in my 2010 Swift. I confirmed it was the regulator by turning the gas bottle off, disconnecting the output pipe from the regulator then opening the gas bottle valve. This confirmed there was no gas coming through
the regulator.A quick call to the local accessory shop confirmed they had a replacement in stock and was all back up and running within a couple of hours.
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Changing the regulator is pretty straight forward. Undo the nut that connects it to the caravan gas pipe, remove two screws that hold the regulator to the bulk head. Swap over the hose to the gas bottle. If you buy the same type of regulator i.e. Truma,
then refiting is the reverse of removal. All in all about a 10 minute job of course you need to check for leaks but you don't call out a gas engineer everytime you change a gas bottle do you?PS I chose to replace the Truma regulator with a Cavenga auto change over unit. I did this because, 1 I didn't want to use another Truma regulator because they are unreliable. 2 The autochange over is very useful for us because We use a lot of gas. 3
It was cheaper than the Truma regulator.0 -
Hello everyone just a quick update , gas regulator changed today as old one was goosed , by this morning no gas at all coming through , arranged with dealer to get it fitted by approved mobile fitter as was under dealer warranty , they wanted me to take
the van to them but it is a four hour round trip so I refused , also it would be a right pain as I have an awning up as well and I wasn't prepared to go without gas until my return from break so after a bit of gentle persuasion they agreed to the mobile fitter
, maybe I'm being a bit dim but surely if a main dealer like the one I bought from is offering dealer warranties you would think they would work with other companies as with a caravan your not always two minutes away from home , however a satisfactory outcome
and I never even had to give the service department too much of a hard time , thanks for all the replies0 -
Glad it is sorted and thanks updating us.
The strange Thing about these regulators is that as far as I see the failure doesn't seem to be related to gas usage. As people who don't use much gas seem to have as many failures as those that use loads.
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Thanks for the update
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