IMPORTANT Gas Safety Nu Venture & caravans
Apologies for the length of my post, but the detail is important!
I have a Nu Venture Rio motorhome (but this IS relevant to caravanners) bought direct from the manufacturer in Wigan as a "cancelled contract", so registered in September 2016 on a 66 plate I bought the van in January this year with delivery mileage only - but have only just used the fridge gas system in anger to find TWO potentially FATAL faults and wonder if any other Nu Venture owners have experienced similar?
The permanent "autogas" LPG cylinder was not connected correctly in that the retaining nut for the pipework was not tightened fully. Having topped up the cylinder at my local autogas station I was prompted to open the gas locker by a very faint hissing (!) to be met with a plume of gas escaping from the top of the cylinder.
Having had this sorted, the next day we drove to Cornwall and on arrival at the CL lit the fridge. After about half an hour, opening the cutlery drawer above the fridge we were met with an awful acrid smell of burning and switched off the fridge immediately. A week later and I've just collected the van from our local repairer here in Somerset. The fault was due to the wiring at the back of the van, behind the fridge, pressing against what their tech called the "burner box" for the fridge. The wiring insulation had melted and presumably had we left the fridge on overnight there could have been a fire OR who knows what the effect of the acrid fumes might have been on my wife and I ?! (the solution was simplicity itself, cable tie the wires away from the burner box, it took less than 5 minutes, so what the heck are Nu Venture doing selling a vehicle with such an appalling design fault....... or careless manufacture?)
I'm posting this here for two reasons and #2 is why its relevant to caravanners:.
to warn any users or new / nearly new Rios who have a rear kitchen / side door to have their fridge wiring checked AND for anyone with a permanent refillable LPG installation from Nu Venture to have that checked too.
To tell you that there seems to be no agency or authority in the UK who is in the slightest bit interested ensuring / assuring the safety of gas installations in new motorhomes or caravans. If this were in a house, then "Gas Safe" refers; in a workplace then the HSE; if a fire had occurred then the local fire brigade. I have contacted them all and what emerges is that the installer of the gas system in your new motorhome or caravan merely needs to be "Gas Competent", but no-one is interested in monitoring or licensing the installers of gas systems in leisure vehicles - to ensure such problems as I have experienced do not result in fatalities. Perhaps it will take a fatality?
Yes - I could contact Trading Standards, but I'm not concerned about consumer protection; I don't want my money back; the issues have been fixed and the van is safe. Trading Standards (my wife is a volunteer) will only suggest the same agencies I've already contacted. How can the club's legal team help when I don't have a legal claim?
So what's important for us all, whether motorhomers or caravanners, is to know that there's a huge black hole around the safe installation of gas systems in any new vehicles we buy and I for one am totally astounded to find this seems to be the case.
I had a wry laugh when told the installer merely needs to be "Gas Competent as what I've received from Nu Venture is incompetence personified, verging on the criminally dangerous, except apparently, it isn't until I have been killed by the faulty system..... food for thought.
This seems very odd and I wonder why we apparently have a massive safety regulation system in the UK that ignores what are pretty basic systems used in confined spaces by hundreds of thousands of people.
PS. Despite these two faults and a some other quality issues (sorted under warranty) and the failure of the Peugot's turbo solenoid after 1300 miles, I would still buy another Nu Ventures Rio as overall they are the best designed small motorhome we have found, anywhere. BUT next time from a dealer AND I'd insist on a full gas & electric safety check as a condition of sale.
Comments
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Did you contact the company and what was their response? It is much appreciated that you have warned the members, but it is your vehicle and I think a strong complaint to the company is probably needed.
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Oh boy really scary. Thanks for sharing to warn others. The outcome could have been so different, but I'm delighted that it isn't.
I agree it seems totally bizarre not to have a decent standard of competence and regular checking of operative. I know the CORGI has to be reapplied for and there's a fee, but in the great scheme of things it could only add pence to price of a van. It's amazing that regulations don't apply to mobile gas installations such as motorhomes and caravans.
We are each responsible for our own safety and you were lucky enough to have 'warning' but all we all supposed to check behind everyone else that they have done the job properly? There's lots of things I wouldn't know where to begin on checking that's why I pay someone 😲.
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So, yes, I did contact the company after the first incident and their response was "email us with the info & we'll tell the workshop".
I had hoped it would be "we are very sorry for this and horrified our normally high quality work has fallen short in this case. Please be assured we will take immediate steps to ensure this doesn't happen again...." but it wasn't. To add to that, I've had no response in the 10 days since reporting the burning smell.
However I HAVE had a response from Gas Safe after an exchange of several emails. Its very long ,see below :-(
It basically says the area is unregulated but if you complain hard enough we'll send an advisor round to check them out. So we react if pushed. I would have preferd a proactive acredited scheme with a required level of training....
Gas Safe Register administers a Register of competent gas engineers on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive. A person/business is required to be competent and registered with Gas Safe Register to undertake gas work, as defined by the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations (GSIUR). To become registered, the person/business is required to demonstrate to a certification body that they are competent to undertake their particular area of gas work. Once the person has demonstrated that they are competent they are awarded certificates of gas safety competence under the Accredited Certification Scheme (ACS) and their achievements are electronically downloaded to Gas Safe and the business can then be registered with Gas Safe to undertake gas work.
However, although the work is outside of our authority, if that work involves gas safety or the business is working outside of their competency albeit outside of GSIUR then details of the complaint will be provided to the businesses local inspector who will be able to carry out an inspection with the business, so that we can understand the level of their gas competence and will decide our future action, to ensure that demonstrable improvement and compliance of the business or engineer is achieved as quickly as possible.
With the above in mind please be assured that although we have no authority in limited areas of gas work as explained above, Gas Safe takes gas safety seriously and we will be inspecting the business mentioned as a result of your complaint. However we will not be able to share with you the outcomes of our inspection of the business concerned, this is set out in our consumer policy which I have attached to this email for you information.
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It really is very shocking that the touring side of gas safety is foggy to say the least. I had problems with gas safety and eventually Trading Standards got involved and sent me to Health and Safety who did inspect the dealer concerned much to their fury! The first instance was a failure to tighten the hose at the caravan end which I luckily smelt while eating my supper by the gas locker (the only patch of sun). Luckily I am not a smoker as there was quite a leakage! I was assured the fitter would be suitably dealt with so foolishly returned to the same dealer! Next time it was new hoses with split brass fittings! Not so much gas leaking this time but enough is enough.
I hope people with the relevant vehicles read your post and stop putting too much trust in so called experts.
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