How to set fire to your caravan
Learning from other people’s near disasters can be quite helpful. We had just arrived on site and were casually chatting with our friends outside of the caravan while we were putting down the steadies and plugging in the EHU. I came out of the caravan and said I could smell someone cooking toast. Then there was a large bang, Our friend thought a tyre had burst. I stepped back into the caravan to find a tea towel had burst into flames and the smoke alarm was going. I quickly threw the tea towel out of the door. What had happened? While we were loading the caravan and putting stuff under the fixed bed one of us must have nudged against the cooker knobs with our backside. When we arrived on site and plugged in the EHU the electric hot plate came on. The smoked glass cooker top exploded and then set fire to the tea towel that we always kept on top of the glass worktop to stop it getting scratched. Now to find a new cooker top, a new tea towel and to remember to be more careful in the future!
Comments
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Always remember to remove the oven glove from the oven before lighting it!!!!(ask my wife)
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Same thing happened to us, although fortunately not with such a disastrous result. First time out with our brand new MH. Squeezing past each other we must also have caught it. Fortunately we had raised the top ready to put the kettle on. First we knew of it was when I noticed the hob glowing. Unfortunately there is no convient switch below, so I pulled off the knob and it now lives in the cuttlery drawer. We have tested it and there is no way it will turn on accidentally or otherwise with out it.
Our first caravan had a gas cut out, it was always sticking on. Personally I couldn't see the point of it, as to turn the gas on you have to both turn and hold in the knob, plus press the igniter. One on the electric would certainly be of more use but would not work with it up, as in our case. It's really the positioning of the knob on the end that is the problem in ours, where it is very easy to catch.
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Sadly this is a very common fault that caravan manufacturers should be aware of. Recently we had a lucky escape. We stack the cushions on the closed cooker glass when we go to bed. We went to bed at 11pm, unbeknown to us, we had caught the electric plate cooker knob, which had turned onto the lowest setting. I woke at 3am to the most awful acrid smell of burning. The heat from the electric plate was burning the cushion through the glass cooker cover. We quickly turned it off, didn’t move the glass cover (too hot and fear of it exploding) and threw the cushion outside. Then we had to open the door and windows to get rid of the burning acrid smell, all at 3 in the morning. We were glad that we store the cushions on top of the oven, because without the burning smell of the cushions, we wouldn’t have been woken up and maybe the first we would have known about it was the glass cooker cover exploding with us sleeping very close to it.
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You were very lucky there because over the years I have seen a couple of caravan fires and it is really unbelievable how quickly a caravan is reduced to ashes if the fire gets a hold. It takes less than 5 minutes to get to the state shown in the photograph (Picture taken only last week in a layby)
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I must look into that on our hob, as I too thought that closing the lid cut off everything.
Fortunately, although the gas knobs on ours are very easy to turn accidentally, the knob on the electric hotplate is very stiff to turn and has a definite click between all positions.
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Thank you for the warning. When you think of all the amazing inventions that there are these days you would think that manufacturers would have come up with an idea to stop switches being accidentally switched on. I have a share in a 23 year old narrowboat and the gas cooker (no glass lid) has the type of switch which has to be pushed in for a short time before the gas will light, but my 16 year old motorhome has a gas hob which switches on immediately, even with the glass down (I have just tried it) which I am very surprised at!.
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