LP detector ??

kakampers

Past Heartland Ambassador
Anyone have any idea what could cause the LP detector to alarm for no apparent reason? 12V power is fine, no odors of any kind...doesn't appear to be a leak. Could it just have gone bad?

We're stumped...
 

Invizatu

Senior Road Warriors
I can't verify it, but I have heard stories about sewer gas setting one off before. I guess it would be possible if the detector was very close to the toilet or maybe someone passed gas as they walked by it? LOL :eek:
 

JohnDar

Prolifically Gabby Member
Quite possible it's reached the end of it's service life, or had an internal malfunction, just like many carbon monoxide and smoke detectors do. This manual may not be the same as your device, but it does show the possible signals that the detector may emit. If you don't smell the mercaptan odorant, it's possible that the detector is bad. If you can make nice-nice with the local FD, they could survey your rig with a 4-gas monitor, just to be safe. Just like I do when homeowners call 911 and say they smell gas in the house. Try calling their business phone number and maybe they'll come out for a look-see.
 

kakampers

Past Heartland Ambassador
It is almost five years old, and it's been in use continually....what's the life expectancy?
 

krhyde

Kentucky Chapter Leaders-retired
LP detectors will alarm with any strong odor, not just LP. I had a "sewer gas" smell and my LP detector kept going off. I spent my time trying to find an LP leak. There was none, but the "sewer" smell was actually coming from my "fresh" water tank. I had left some water in it for several months and it went bad. Sanitized the tank and odor went away and LP detector quit sounding off. Ken
 

JohnDar

Prolifically Gabby Member
It is almost five years old, and it's been in use continually....what's the life expectancy?

Found this after a bit of searching. Just like smoke and CO detectors, the life expectancy can be more or less than "average." Careful on the flatulence while sitting in the recliners, too. Sounds like too much cabbage in the diet might set it off, too.

LP gas detectors are sensitive to the gaseous leaks inside the RV. They’re also sensitive to other airborne chemicals, such as aerosol sprays from cans, cleaning solvents, insect repellant, perfumes, and even fuel vapors, so an alarm could be a false alarm (and hopefully, it is.) On that note, don’t camp near any livestock feed lots, because the methane gas produced by animals can set them off, too. Hint-humans are animals, too, for this application.

Propane detectors will give off a series of short beeps when the battery is low, as compared to the continuous alarm when it detects gas in the air. They have a shorter functional life than smoke detectors, and should be replaced at least every seven years.

 

GOTTOYS

Well-known member
Been feeding the dog anything different? I swear our dog could set one of them off in a heartbeat!...Don
 

kakampers

Past Heartland Ambassador
This occurred at 2 am...with absolutely no odors at all, anywhere in the rig...guess we must assume it died.
 

traveler44

Well-known member
I looked at ours and it has a sticker on it that says RED-ALARM GREEN-GOOD YELLOW-REPLACE. The green light is on showing that it is working. Ours is mounted in the middle of the back wall under the rear window along the floor. I am surprised it is mounted so far away from anything that uses propane like the furnace, water heater or fridge that are all in the middle of the 3370RL. If yours doesn't have a light on it showing the condition of it maybe it is time for an upgrade. John do you know how much gas it takes to set these detectors off? Does your fire department have any gas they use to test them with? By the way there was a house fire about a half block up the street from us the other day. The guy said all he was doing was microwaving a pizza and the next thing he knew the whole room was on fire. The fire department put it out but it caused extensive damage. Looks like they are rebuilding the house now.
 

brianharrison

Well-known member
LP detectors can pick up very low levels, even when our noses cannot detect the mercaptan. I would never assume it is "just" a false reading; taking precautions such as opening a window is never a bad idea.

Replace it quickly or get a second portable one to confirm. As mentioned the fire department will have portable LP detectors and the gas to test them.

Take care,
Brian
 

JohnDar

Prolifically Gabby Member
I looked at ours and it has a sticker on it that says RED-ALARM GREEN-GOOD YELLOW-REPLACE. The green light is on showing that it is working. Ours is mounted in the middle of the back wall under the rear window along the floor. I am surprised it is mounted so far away from anything that uses propane like the furnace, water heater or fridge that are all in the middle of the 3370RL. If yours doesn't have a light on it showing the condition of it maybe it is time for an upgrade. John do you know how much gas it takes to set these detectors off? Does your fire department have any gas they use to test them with? By the way there was a house fire about a half block up the street from us the other day. The guy said all he was doing was microwaving a pizza and the next thing he knew the whole room was on fire. The fire department put it out but it caused extensive damage. Looks like they are rebuilding the house now.

Interesting questions. First off, no we do not carry test gas for residential or RV detectors. We have calibration gas for our detectors, but it requires adapters to attach it to them. If someone's CO detector, for example, is going off in the house, we take an initial reading at the entry point. If the meter is starts to rise over 35 ppm, we mask up and proceed to survey the home to find the source (usually either the gas stove or the furnace/water heater). If they complain of gas odor, then the same procedure with the meter, watching the %LEL reading. At 10% LEL, we beat feet for the door. Changes in the oxygen level readings are also an indicator of a problem. I have a Powerpoint slide about LEL/UEL I use for training, but it won't paste here. Our meters start displaying at 0.1% LEL for methane (the calibration gas).

RV gas detectors are set (from the literature I found) to sound at 25% of the LEL (lower explosive limit) for propane, which is 2.2% by volume in air. So, that means if the concentration of propane in the rig (at the sensor) is 0.5%, the alarm will go off. This does not mean imminent explosion, but it's time to take action (evacuate, call 911, turn off gas if you can safely, ventilate). On your rig, turning off the gas at the tanks should be enough to secure the situation if done quickly. Some of the literature I looked at says the (brand) of RV detector is set to go off at 25% of the LEL for both propane and methane. I question that since the LEL for methane is twice that of propane (5%). The sensor can only be calibrated to a single gas and the user needs to know which. Encountering any other gas requires a correction (K-factor) applied to the meter reading (if you know what the gas is).

As for microwaving the pizza, unless he had a major gas leak in the kitchen, there are only two ways I know of to start a fire with one. Either an electrical short or putting metal inside the microwave. I know, nobody ever does that...

http://www.es-web.com/PDF/install3.pdf

Be mindful of your safety, but remember that these detectors (CO, LP, smoke) can malfunction, even when relatively new. Normally when they do, they sound an alarm as a fail-safe so you do something about it. And, as we tell our residents, NEVER be embarrassed to call the Fire Department because your alarm has sounded. I'd rather pull the old batteries out for them than carry their corpse to the curb.

In regards to the mercaptan odorant, the normal detection threshold is 0.002 ppm. It's used because the normal human nose will detect it long before the gas concentration is anywhere near a problem level. Natural gas and propane, themselves, are odorless.

This has been gas monitoring in a nut-shell. It is by no means all-inclusive or meant to imply I am an expert in this.
 

wdk450

Well-known member
I looked at ours and it has a sticker on it that says RED-ALARM GREEN-GOOD YELLOW-REPLACE. The green light is on showing that it is working. Ours is mounted in the middle of the back wall under the rear window along the floor. I am surprised it is mounted so far away from anything that uses propane like the furnace, water heater or fridge that are all in the middle of the 3370RL. If yours doesn't have a light on it showing the condition of it maybe it is time for an upgrade. John do you know how much gas it takes to set these detectors off? Does your fire department have any gas they use to test them with? By the way there was a house fire about a half block up the street from us the other day. The guy said all he was doing was microwaving a pizza and the next thing he knew the whole room was on fire. The fire department put it out but it caused extensive damage. Looks like they are rebuilding the house now.

I don't know if it was the Pizza or the microwave; but I have learned that oily pizzas can be a fire hazard, after the Medical Center I worked at had a MAJOR fire in the cafeteria kitchen. An oven full of pizzas had the door opened to check on their baking. Theory is that the oxygen supplied when the oven door opened caused oily vapors to flash into fire. I don't know why they just couldn't close the oven door to put out the fire, but the hospital kitchen was out of service for a couple of weeks.
 

traveler44

Well-known member
If you are interested in what caused the pizza fire and I hear any more about it I will post it. Tom
 
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kakampers

Past Heartland Ambassador
As we are away from the rig for Christmas, and the alarm sounded again yesterday when our friends went to get the dogs, we had them immediately turn of the furnace and the gas. The water heater was already off. We will replace it when we get home.
 

Lance & Jo

Well-known member
Had the same symptom last summer while at the rally. Finally determined that the detector was just going through a very vocal demise due to old age. Found new ones stocked at Heartland.
 

Birchwood

Well-known member
Sounds like a malfunction of the detector because you call smell propane,sewer and battery acid.
They are not that expensive and I do think you have to replace the frequently.
 

PeternLiane

Well-known member
Our LP detector was going off all of the time in our old TT. There were no propane leaks found. No smells were smelt. We got good readings from everything. We thought that we had a bad LP detector. However, when we went through the wiring we found out that our battery was bad. We replaced the battery. The LP detector was in good working order after the battery replacement.
 

wdk450

Well-known member
Re: "LP detectors can pick up very low levels, even when our noses cannot detect the mercaptan. I would never assume it is "just" a false reading; taking precautions such as opening a window is never a bad idea."

We had the opposite situation happen. We smelled Gas inside around the kitchen slide, and the LP alarm never sounded. The alarm test did (and still does) test O.K. The 2nd servicer I had on the problem finally found a cracked gas line elbow outside in the slide.
 

kakampers

Past Heartland Ambassador
Think we found the source of the alarm...after returning back to the rig, the first night, we stayed in the coach house during the evening, and when we walked into the rig to go to bed...there was a horrible smell.

Took awhile to isolate, but it appears our 6 year old Trojan T105's have bit the dust...they were boiling away!!! We have them disconnected from the solar system and will be replacing...MAN those AGM's are expensive!!

Anyone have a relatively inexpensive battery source???
 
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