Butane without a regulator!

[craiglockwood]

I've recently acquired an old Centaur and have been checking her over. There is a Plastimo Neptune 2000 2 burner and grill in the galley, which ar pretty common. Decided to make a cup of tea so went to locker to turn on the gas to discover the previous owner has been using it without a regulator! Surely, that's not right?

Obviously I will be fitting a regulator immediately, but just wandering if anybody else has come across a boat using butane without a regulator?

 

[Minerva]

How was it connected? Did your kettle boil quickly with a turbo jet flame?

 

[craiglockwood]

just a threaded brass fitting direct to a 4.5kg tank. I haven't lit the rings - even though the promise of faster tea sounds tempting

 

[vyv_cox]

I don't know about your stove but I have owned one of different make in the past that had a regulator built in. Gas at bottle pressure supplied to it.

 

[Graham376]

I don't know about your stove but I have owned one of different make in the past that had a regulator built in. Gas at bottle pressure supplied to it.

Neptune 2000 needs regulator. Suggest checking to see if there's a bulkhead mounted reg further along the line, it may not need the bottle top one.

 

[VicS]

I've recently acquired an old Centaur and have been checking her over. There is a Plastimo Neptune 2000 2 burner and grill in the galley, which ar pretty common. Decided to make a cup of tea so went to locker to turn on the gas to discover the previous owner has been using it without a regulator! Surely, that's not right?

Obviously I will be fitting a regulator immediately, but just wandering if anybody else has come across a boat using butane without a regulator?

The label on the stove should say which gas ( butane or propane) it is designed for and at what pressure.

I have had two camping stoves ( I still have one of them ) which operated at high pressure ie without a regulator, not even a built in one. I would not want to have used them on a boat though.

I recommend that you read the section of the Boat Safety Scheme relating to LPG installations to get an idea of what is acceptable (mandatory for inland waterways craft)

https://www.marinesurveys.net/BoatSafety/Guideline-chap7LPG.pdf

 

[Refueler]

Interesting as I seem to recall that regulator to bottle has a left hand thread ... to avoid this sort of DIY mess ...

 

[KevinV]

I've seen remote regulators on boats - it keeps a bit of kit that doesn't like corrosion out of the gas locker.

 

[blush2]

The regulator was faulty on the boat we just bought. The flame was like a blow torch and food put in the oven scorched in double quick time. The cooker developed a gas leak. The regulator finally gave up completely half way across Lyme Bay and dumped the contents of the cylinder. (The evening meal was a cheese sarnie and a bottle of red!) A new regulator seems to have sorted it out.

 

[oldmanofthehills]

Neptune 2000 needs regulator. Suggest checking to see if there's a bulkhead mounted reg further along the line, it may not need the bottle top one.

An inline regular is really chancing things. Then the pipe line from cylinder to regulator and all its joins are under full bottle pressure which of course rises in hot weather. I have visions of full pressure in a rubber tube with jubilee clips and quake in alarm

Small camping stoves with no regulator are a different matter altogether, and indeed they often have a flow restricter mesh which serves much the same purpose