Butane not burning mystery.

[DickieT]

Need other people's experience on this one ! Calor 4.5Kg butane gas cylinder, new refill from approved dealer. Fitted to Propex heater - refused to fire, fault lights indicate "no gas or low pressure". Changed regulator with known good one. Still same fault condition. Fitted identical cylinder from cooker, all worked fine. In short I tried the cylinder on three different appliances with obviously three different regulators. Fault always followed the cylinder. On cracking open the valve the pressure "sounded" right and a good smell of the stenching additive. Certainly felt up to weight. But will not burn ! Tried it on a gas torch, ignites ok but once the lighter used to ignite it taken away it immediately goes out.
Dealer said never known that before but, to be fair, changed it with no hassle. New cylinder works fine.
Just would like to know if others ever come across this .
Thanks, Richard

 

[Heckler]

Need other people's experience on this one ! Calor 4.5Kg butane gas cylinder, new refill from approved dealer. Fitted to Propex heater - refused to fire, fault lights indicate "no gas or low pressure". Changed regulator with known good one. Still same fault condition. Fitted identical cylinder from cooker, all worked fine. In short I tried the cylinder on three different appliances with obviously three different regulators. Fault always followed the cylinder. On cracking open the valve the pressure "sounded" right and a good smell of the stenching additive. Certainly felt up to weight. But will not burn ! Tried it on a gas torch, ignites ok but once the lighter used to ignite it taken away it immediately goes out.
Dealer said never known that before but, to be fair, changed it with no hassle. New cylinder works fine.
Just would like to know if others ever come across this .
Thanks, Richard

Same thing happened to me, stuff coming out but not burning. Mate of mine used to be regional manager for Calor explained, sometimes the valve gets opened when empty, fills,up with air, then gets refilled, the, now compressed air, comes out first. Solution, open the valve to atmosphere and let it squirt a bit. It then works ok!
Stu

 

[sailorman]

weigh the bottle & check against the tare weight on the bottle

 

[DickieT]

Same thing happened to me, stuff coming out but not burning. Mate of mine used to be regional manager for Calor explained, sometimes the valve gets opened when empty, fills,up with air, then gets refilled, the, now compressed air, comes out first. Solution, open the valve to atmosphere and let it squirt a bit. It then works ok!
Stu

Thanks Stu and sailorman. Explanation makes sense. As said before, bottle changed without fuss, perhaps dealer aware of this, inspite of "never known that" explanation. I joked I had bought a bottle of compressed air, perhaps I wasn't so far off the mark after all ! Thanks, and hopefully this may help others.
Richard

 

[daveyw]

Also, if it's a brand spanking new cylinder from the factory or one that has recently been serviced there will be air in the top. Just needs venting off....... somewhere safe!

 

[sarabande]

Will someone please explain in words of one syllable how "air" and propane gas (not liquid) manage to remain separate in a sealed steel canister?

Duh

 

[MonniotC]

Will someone please explain in words of one syllable how "air" and propane gas (not liquid) manage to remain separate in a sealed steel canister?

Because Propane gas becomes liquid when compressed?

 

[PaulRainbow]

Best way to cure this is to roll a newspaper up and set light to it. Hold the burning paper in front of the bottle valve (with the regulator disconnected) and open the valve. When you get a strong, powerful flame, about 1 metre long you know the air has gone. If you do this on the boat it's obviously best to make sure the valve is pointing overboard, taking care not to ignite any adjacent boats.

 

[macd]

Will someone please explain in words of one syllable how "air" and propane gas (not liquid) manage to remain separate in a sealed steel canister?

Only if you explain where the propane came from

(This thread is about a butane bottle.)

 

[[3889]]

Will someone please explain in words of one syllable how "air" and propane gas (not liquid) manage to remain separate in a sealed steel canister?

Duh

They don't have to remain separate. If there is sufficient air in the cylinder then the gas fraction will be below the lower limit of flammability.

 

[tyce]

Thanks for the explanation, I had the same issue on a new bottle on my boat that just would not stay lit initially, makes perfect sense as its fine now.

 

[earlybird]

Having a mixture of flammable gas and air, in unknown proportions, inside a pressure vessel, seems a dodgy proposition to me. Surely the filling station purges the vessel first.

 

[VicS]

Only if you explain where the propane came from

(This thread is about a butane bottle.)

I guess the same could apply to propane ?

Interesting thread.

 

[nigelmercier]

I ran out of gas in Morocco. Found a street-seller with 907 cylinders for €5. Valve leaked, so replaced rubber washer with one from old cylinder (always remove these). Gas lasted until we reached Canary Islands, the rest was water!

 

[MM5AHO]

But surely if you had a mix of butane and air, and pressurised it, the air would not liquefy, but the butane would. And so a mixture becomes two discrete parts, liquid butane and compressed air.
The pressure at which butane liquefies and that where air liquefies are vastly different. In this context the air would never liquefy, but remain separate.

Reversing that, on opening the valve, the air comes out first, and is kept pressurised by the butane boiling off. When all air out, a combustible butane comes off.
Until the air is all out, the butane will mix with air , but not be rich enough to ignite when diluted in the burner nozzle.

 

[earlybird]

The gas space above the liquid butane will be a mixture of gases, each at their partial pressures for the temperature of the system.

 

[MM5AHO]

The gas space above the liquid butane will be a mixture of gases, each at their partial pressures for the temperature of the system.

Unless that pressure is above liquification pressure for that temp?

 

[Giblets]

Having a mixture of flammable gas and air, in unknown proportions, inside a pressure vessel, seems a dodgy proposition to me.

Not really because the third element (ignition) for burning/explosion is not present in a sealed cylinder.

 

[earlybird]

Not really because the third element (ignition) for burning/explosion is not present in a sealed cylinder.

That condition ceases when you attach a rubber/ thin-walled copper tube and put a match to the open end!

 

[Robin]

Same thing happened to me, stuff coming out but not burning. Mate of mine used to be regional manager for Calor explained, sometimes the valve gets opened when empty, fills,up with air, then gets refilled, the, now compressed air, comes out first. Solution, open the valve to atmosphere and let it squirt a bit. It then works ok!
Stu

Yep had that multiple times some years back with freshly exchanged GAZ cylinders refilled at the Calor gas station in Poole some years ago. truly irritating and somewhat worrying venting 'gas' even though I always did it n the swim platform with the washboards in place and hatches closed.