Can Butane gas freeze

[EmmaJ1]

Hello,
Can anyone give me a bit of advise please. Unfortunately my Husband and I are living in an Abbey Oxford caravan while waiting for renovation works on our house to be completed. In this weather it's not much fun and we have continual problems with the water supply freezing up. Now on top of that the gas seems to have dried up and we only recently replaced the bottle. Is it possible that the gas could have frozen?
Thanks in advance.
Emma

 

[vauxhall2]

yes your gas can freeze up.i will try to find the correct numbers.

 

[Soozeeg]

Yes it can Emma - well, something happens to it, I don't know all the technical details. Same thing happened to us when we were away at Christmas last year. You really need to change to Propane in the really cold weather (which may mean a change of regulator as well).

 

[vauxhall2]

see
http://www.caravanning-online.co.uk/caravan-faq/index.htm#3

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Emma,
Butane LPG (calor gas blue bottles) in practical terms is not suitable for caravan in temperatures below 5 C. Propane (Calor red bottles) is the preferred LPG for ambient temperatures below 5C and in fact it is good for practical temperatures down to about -30C.
LPG stands for Liquefied Petroleum Gas, and technically it does not freeze (conversion of a liuid to a solid) but it stops boiling (conversion of a fluid to a gas) In practice the name is irrelevant as far as you are concerned it just stops working. The gasses true boiling points are a bit lower below the figures I have given above, but as you use gas from a bottle it actually cools the bottle so it needs some temperature difference to make sure enough gas is boiled off to run the caravan.
LPG bottles actually work just like a domestic pressure cooker, but at a much lower temperature.

 

[LMH]

Ours froze on Saturday which resulted in having to go and buy a bottle of orange and a regulator and fitting it all in the dark and snow.

The water keeps freezing etc too.

Hope you get it all sorted.

Lisa

 

[ProfJohnL]

LPG Butane does not 'FREEZE' it actually stops 'BOILING' or 'Gassing off'

 

[Guest]

Technically of course you are right John, still, for all practical layman explanations, Freezing is a one word easily understood description which requires no more explanation.
No different to when the policeman shouts 'freeze' no one expects the baddy to turn to ice! but stop moving, same as Butane does

 

[EmmaJ1]

Thank you everyone for all the info - you learn something every day. Most depressing news

I had no idea butane could freeze (stop boiling). We'll have to think about swapping over. Thank goodness we've got a microwave that's all I can say. Roll on Spring!!!

Emma

 

[Parksy]

Hi Emma
An old water tank jacket or even couple of old anoraks from a charity jumble wrapped around your Aquaroll might help to prevent the water from freezing so often. Domestic pipe lagging over the water pipes might also help. An awning will help to keep the cold out of the caravan if your haven't erected one already.
Steve in Leo, one of our long standing forum members, lives full time in his tourer. I'm sure that he'll have plenty of tips to help you to stay warm and comfortable. I hope that your house renovation is completed soon.

 

[Ancientcaravanner]

Itis actually the boiling point we are talking about, not the freezing point. The actual boiling point of butane is -0.5 C, i.e. slightly below the freezing point of water, at 4 C it is getting close to that and will gas slightly, but not as efficiently as it did at say 20 C.
The boiling point of propane is much lower, at -42.1 C, so it is much better at turning into gas at low temperatures around 0 C than butane is.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hi again Emma,

Just another point that came to mind when Parksy mentioned insulation jackets: Don't be tempted to wrap up your gas bottles, it will actually make things worse - the gas bottles rely on having access to ambient air to collect the heat they need to boil the liquefied gas. An insulation jacket will prevent the ambient heat getting to the bottle.

 

[forestgump]

i use a old jacket around water but zip it up and pass tue water pipe and pump through sleve of jacket.

 

[DerektheSecond]

Insulate the bottle and place a couple of hot water bottles next to it

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Derek,
Which bottles are you referring to? - If its the gas bottles, then as I stated earlier it exactly the wrong thing to do. Without gas how do you heat the water to put into the hot water bottles (unless you have an EHU)!

I have had to resolve this type of problem many times with customers over the years, usually at the beginning of the season, but of note, the company I worked for was exhibiting at a caravan rally. The air temperature was about 7 or 8 degrees. We were called to three different caravans where the vanner complained that the gas appliances kept going out after a few minutes first thing in the morning. We found two caravanners who had used a hot water cylinder insulation jackets to put round their gas bottles in the belief it would stop them going cold. Another we found had lined their gas bottle locker with locker some Correx (Plastic corrugated cardboard) to stop small items falling out, but had also stuffed it full of tow ropes and other brick a brac which did a pretty good job of insulating the bottles. We measured the temperature of one of the insulated bottles and it was 7 degrees cooler than the external air!
In all cases the problem was resolved by removing the insulation and restoring the free air movement.

On a personal note I took a Norfolk Broads boat during the October Half terms a few years ago. The nights turned very frosty, and as the boat had a steel hull and the gas locker had good free flow of air, I was not surprised to find that we had no gas in the mornings.
We had no way of heating until the gas was restored. The solution was to use a bucket of river water and dowse the bottles (avoiding the regulator). That was enough to boil a kettle for hot drinks.

The following year I insisted on the boat being fitted with Propane.

 

[DerektheSecond]

The op states they have a microwave that relates to electrical power warm water over the gas bottles will raise the tempreature of the gas hot water bottles and insulation overnight in my experience has kept the tempreture above the point where the butane will boil off.It was a short term cheap soloution rather than buy a propane bottle and regulator etc.

 

[Steve L]

Hello everyone from a very cold and now snowy Herefordshire.
Sorry for the slow reply but I was thawing our water all weekend and "un-freezing" our gas.

Parksy is right a couple of old XXL pufa jackets are as good as anything for protecting your water barrels. Also you could tip a couple of buckets of hot water in last thing at night. Now some smart a*se will prolificate about bacterial propogation, but it's more a case of needs must when your out in the cold. As a precaution we only use the barrel water for washing etc and not drinking. We keep a 10Ltr can of water inside the van for hot drinks. Now despite using the jackets on the barrels and poking the pump down the sleeve, our water still froze as we are in an open field of a site and it got down to -8 in our awning (got a greenhouse thermometer out there). So I put our porch awning skirt on the rail behind the barrels and popped a small plastic tarp over the barrels, this cut's out the wind and keeps the water flowing.

Our butane gas had "froze" so what I did was to use the water bottles around the cylinder and during the day I left the front locker open to let what bit of sun we had in.
Don't get tempted to put fan heaters or sealed green house heaters in the gas locker. There are still fumes flowing around there so the big bang could still happen!!
My battle now is getting the site facilities working. (the warden's too comfy in the centally heated accomodation). The site water taps are all froze and the chemical loo disposal is froze. One tip there. Use a bucket of hot water to un-freeze the disposal point and flush your waste. Got told off last year for doing that by you know who!

There's loads of tips and advice on the permanent caravanning topic on the general forum. There are quite a few fulltimers out thee and they all have great ideas to offer.

Above all, keep your sense of humor as quite often it is our lack of being prepared for the worst that catches us out.
Good luck.

 

[Steve L]

I should of paid tribute to a very good site owner operator (Adrian) who unlike our 5 star facilities we are on now, runs his site through January and Feburary and he had cold water flowing, showers working and the loo disposal working on all but a handfull of days last year in the worst winter since 1980 in Herefordshire. His site is only a 2 star site, but in my eyes it is run by a 5 star bloke who cares about providing the services advertised come what may.

It just goes to show those who want to can do so.

 

[Carolw1]

We have recently been away in our Challenger and had the same problem.Does anyone have any ideas as to How to keep the Propane usable in such cold weather? We were frozen!!
Carol w

 

[MichaelE]

Surely you mean Butane not Propane, if the later then you in trouble as Propane will stop working at around -40 C and as yet i have seen no reports on the news of temps this low?
If you are using Butane then a change to Propane is your answer

 

[Lutz]

Propane boils at -42°C so it remains usable at all temperatures that one is going to encounter anywhere in the British Isles.

 

[xtrailman]

In the past i've poured hot water onto the butane cylinder.

 

[dougie201]

Hi Emma.
Simple answer is switch to propane which will not freeze or boil or whatever you want to call it , and use this gas all year round like i do and you will have no problems.
Dougie......

 

[Carolw1]

The red one, thats the one we have changed to and it was covered in frost half way up the side. No gas came through at all not even to the cooker. Any ideas?

 

[Ancientcaravanner]

If a propane or butane one has frosted like that it usually indicates a rapid withdrawal of gas - could you have a major leak?