Trouble... It really does come in threes!

[pilchard]

aA long and anguished plea for help, so don'y give up when it gets boring.

No.1.
I thought I'd hit on the perfect solution for our gas cylinder problem here in Italy. The largest cylinder our internal gas locker will hold (it's an Auto-Sleepers Symbol Motorhome/Campervan) is a Calor 7kg clinder. Here in Italy it is just not worth considering trying to find anything of a similar size and volume as ours as everyone... and I mean everyone, uses a 10kg cylinder. I did try, but after 3 weeks my head hurt too much... and my Italian is pretty good. Of course, anyone with money to burn and short on nouse can just buy Campingaz... rip-off French stuff!
So I decided to ditch the two now empty Brit cylinders I'd brought and get a local !0kg "bombola" plus regulator and longer hose, house it in the comparatively copious wardrobe above the gas locker and bore a hole in the floor to accomodate the pipe.
Please, please... no health and safety lecture, I'm a big boy and ex CORGI.
The guy I got the cylinder and regulator from kindly lent me a nice big Dewalt battery drill and two totally blunt drills in order to bore a 20mm hole through the steel lined floor. What a nightmare! I ended up going to a hardware store and buying an overpriced core drill which would have done the job admirably had the battery drill not packed up on me 20 seconds later. I ended up just bullying my way through with combination tactics and returning the chaps drill declaring it flat... I hoped, rather than buggered.

No.2.
While I was gone the wife, whose Italian is very poor and doesn't drive, got into a contretemps with a rather rude Italian couple who insisted she move our van from the very narrow marked parking space so the driver could get in. Explaining that she didn't drive, that we had parked legitimately in the only available space and that it was in fact their own car too close to our space on their driver's side causing the problem... the driver flatly refused to debase his male dignity by climbing over to his drivers seat from the easily accessible passenger side. The ensuing solution apparently involved the skinny driver squeezing through a 6 inch door opening, scratching our van in the process. Although my wife was still behaving impeccably, Mr Skinny's witch of a wife threw insults at her as they drove off.

We call days like that Italian Days.
No.3.
After I'd finished off neatening, rearranging everything, and testing the gas... in high humidity... I was buggered, so sat down to rest and feel smug in having finally achieved a solution to an ongoing problem.
a minute later there was an almighty bang, and the toughened glass lid to the Spinflow Caprice 2020 oven/grill/hob combo lay in tiny bits of broken glass. I had been purging the gas line through one of the hob burners with it lit until the flame had settled. Instead of turning the burner of before closing the glass lid, I had just turned it to simmer. What a bloody muppet!
It took an hour between us to clean up all the glass and in that time my wife was so civil and understanding... I just knew I would be paying.
So... an hour or so online demonstrated that this part is no longer available to ordinary muppets like me.
Someone PLEASE HELP find this part. She will make me suffer.

 

[Damian]

I am not going to give a H&S lecture, but please don't bang on about being ex CORGI when in your earlier posts you stated that you had never worked on gas.

Not only does that give a very bad impression of your work standards but also taints Gas Safe(which replaced CORGI in 2009) with you almost using that as an excuse of a reason you have butchered the gas locker and made the van in need of some serious repair before anyone else gets their hands on it in the future.

 

[Hutch]

Oh Well, Shxte happen, you just have to keep carrying on , and hopefully not have anymore "Hick ups" good luck . Hutch.

 

[pilchard]

I am not going to give a H&S lecture, but please don't bang on about being ex CORGI when in your earlier posts you stated that you had never worked on gas.

Not only does that give a very bad impression of your work standards but also taints Gas Safe(which replaced CORGI in 2009) with you almost using that as an excuse of a reason you have butchered the gas locker and made the van in need of some serious repair before anyone else gets their hands on it in the future.

Now, now Damian... I think you go too far.
If you want to criticise, then just make sure you get your facts straight. I have never said I'd never worked with gas... Christ!... I spent years working on domestic gas installations.
As to "butchered"... that is my own objective view and should not be thrown in my face or held up as an example of my inferiority, stupidity, or whatever you are trying to infer... nor used to project you're own God-almighty superiority. I am a furniture restorer, cabinet-maker, joiner who happens to have a broad range of skills. If I speak in mildly self-deprocating terms, that does not give you licence to be rude and judgemental. Judge only when you know all the facts. The butchery involved was pretty insignificant, but when I return to the UK, where I'll have access to a full range of materials and my own tools, I'll make a professional and safe repair that will not be detremental to the van or it's future use or owners.
If you have nothing positive to contribute, then just keep your views to yourself. Capish?

 

[Damian]

Quote " nor used to project you're own God-almighty superiority."

Not superior at all.
I post as a fully qualified Gas Safe LPG engineer and what you have done is inexcusable.
Domestic gas is nothing like LPG.

Quote " If you have nothing positive to contribute, then just keep your views to yourself. Capish? "

When it comes to safety and what others may do with the kind of thing that you have done I will always challenge it, so I will not keep my views to myself.
Who knows, my speaking (as such) may save another person a lot of trouble.

 

[camel]

I am not going to give a H&S lecture, but please don't bang on about being ex CORGI when in your earlier posts you stated that you had never worked on gas.

Not only does that give a very bad impression of your work standards but also taints Gas Safe(which replaced CORGI in 2009) with you almost using that as an excuse of a reason you have butchered the gas locker and made the van in need of some serious repair before anyone else gets their hands on it in the future.

Now, now Damian... I think you go too far.
If you want to criticise, then just make sure you get your facts straight. I have never said I'd never worked with gas... Christ!... I spent years working on domestic gas installations.
As to "butchered"... that is my own objective view and should not be thrown in my face or held up as an example of my inferiority, stupidity, or whatever you are trying to infer... nor used to project you're own God-almighty superiority. I am a furniture restorer, cabinet-maker, joiner who happens to have a broad range of skills. If I speak in mildly self-deprocating terms, that does not give you licence to be rude and judgemental. Judge only when you know all the facts. The butchery involved was pretty insignificant, but when I return to the UK, where I'll have access to a full range of materials and my own tools, I'll make a professional and safe repair that will not be detremental to the van or it's future use or owners.
If you have nothing positive to contribute, then just keep your views to yourself. Capish?

Pilchard, don't worry to much about the reply you received, I've had one this week and also someone got a fizzer , in fact I'm a monitor watching the monitors, now that's a joke Damian and Parkys, chill out,

 

[Mel]

Hi Pilchard. If the gas glass lid is no longer for sale then you could try some caravan breakers when you return to Blighty. You could also try a direct plea to whoever Spinflo manufacturing metamorphosed into.
Good luck.

P.S. Hope Mrs Pilchard was not too upset by the nasty Italian.
Mel

 

[Hutch]

Pilchard, thanks for the updates, I love to hear how we all get around problems when travelling away,
Damians remarks are great if your at home but your not and getting help in a different country is not easy, so keep going and keep posting, I think many on here like your postings.
HUTCH