In the early hours of the morning, I woke up to a very loud hissing sound. Something inside my brain immediately knew it was related to propane, and that I had to get it out of the van, NOW. I’ve been running my dual-fuel stove on a small Coleman propane tank, and in my 99% asleep haze, I managed to unscrew it from the hose to the stove. The hissing stopped.
Despite the cool nighttime temperature, I opened the roof vent, cranked the fan to top speed, and opened the side door (while holding Lister) to get the propane gas out of the van. Propane is heavier than air, and the leak happened right next to the side door. With the door open and the roof vent sucking air into the back of the van as quickly as possible, I figured the propane would “fall” out the side, with a bit of help from fresh air coming into the back to push both air and propane out the door. After about five minutes I couldn’t smell propane anymore. I shut the door, turned off the fan, and went back to bed. It took me about an hour to get back to sleep once my nerves calmed down.
At a more reasonable hour, I took the stove and everything outside to troubleshoot the problem. Since the leak had stopped as soon as I removed the tank, the tank itself was probably not the issue. As soon as I screwed it back onto the hose, the plastic cap on the regulator started leaking. It blew a hole somehow, lifting the sticker on the end away from it. This hose is no longer safe to use and randomly blew in the middle of the night.
It’s funny how things work sometimes. I’d wanted to start using propane instead of butane because my previous stove developed a butane leak from constantly clipping and unclipping the cans in and out every time I used it. The other end of the propane hose screws directly into the stove, bypassing this problem. I couldn’t find the hose that came with the stove, so I ordered a new one on Amazon. Naturally, I found the original hose immediately after the order shipped. That’s the hose that just failed.
As a result, I already have a spare hose to replace the failed one. This one has a metal regulator housing, not plastic, which I feel better about. I hooked everything up, and the stove works fine, with no leaks. I could also just switch back to butane cans, but that brings me back to the problem of the other seal eventually wearing out and leaking.
Now that my stove was safe to use, I made myself some coffee. Halfway through pouring hot water into my pour-over filter, the whole thing tipped over and spilled. I barely managed to grab paper towels fast enough to catch it before it spilled off the table, so at least I kept the mess contained.
Can I go back to bed now?
I’ve left email and voicemail with the storage place. No one has gotten back to me about being locked out of my unit. I’m getting very annoyed. I told them, completely honestly, that I just crossed the country after two years on the west coast to get into my storage unit that they’ve locked me out of and haven’t told me why. If this keeps up much longer, desperate times will call for desperate measures.
I also ordered the next major project for the van, a Chinese diesel heater. They’re all pretty much the same, so I chose one that had more and better reviews than the others. Even if it’s potentially troublesome, $145 is a lot less than around ten times that much for a name-brand heater that works the same way. It’s even less than the Olympian Wave 3 propane heater, which I bought for about that much but has more than doubled in price over the last couple of years. I still have mine but haven’t installed it in the new van. Last night’s incident only makes me more wary about using propane inside the van. (Could an electric induction stove be in my future?) Plus, since the diesel heater’s combustion process uses air from outside the van, not inside, it’s safe to run overnight. No more cold mornings in the desert. I do plan to keep my propane heater as a backup. Anyway, that installation is coming up next week, so stay tuned for that.
Smokey Da Van 