Exploding Gas Cartridges

[Erbswurst]

What do you all know about camping gas cartridges that exploded?

Which?
In combination with which stoves?
In which circumstances?
Why?
How?
Was the reason a user fault or a construction fault or what was the reason?

Tell us what you know about that!

 

[nigelp]

Never heard of any ‘exploding’? Except if the cylinders have been placed on an open fire? They have a rubber safety valve on the screw on ones (EN417) so any pressure build up would be safely released.

Some might leak if the rubber seal perished on the actual stove or if they are not screwed on properly. The gas smells horrible so it very obvious it has happened. Usually the stoves are used outside so less chance of a gas build up.

When I recycle them it take quite a hard hit to make a hole in one.

 

[CrispyDuck]

Funny that you mention this. I’d never known it before, unless left in the sun. But it happened to my brother last week. He took his family camping for the first time. New stove and canister brought from Amazon. They woke up to find it had exploded overnight. It had been used once to boil a kettle. So very lucky nobody was injured.

 

[Toddy]

That's kind of scary.
I have only known one blow up when it ended up in the litter pile and was burnt at the end of a cub scout camp over forty years ago.
We were so lucky because ten minutes earlier there were ten scouts, ten leaders and sixty cubs around that fire.

I've heard of a lot of leaky canisters over the years, but not exploding ones.

 

[Woody girl]

Those suitcase ones are renowned for going pop!
One of the reasons is using household pans that are too big for them. I will only use camping cook sets on it.
I don't realy trust them, though I do have one for emergencies.
Pierce top camping gas ones are a nightmare too. I never felt happy putting in a new canister. Luckily they are pretty much fazed out now, though I do still have a gas camping lantern and a couple of cans for it. It will be my real last resort to use that again.
As mentioned on the other thread, I've seen a gas stove explode while lit, inside a tent.
Not a pretty sight. They don't half go up, and I've never seen a tent reduced to dripping nylon before or thankfully since.
Silly girl should not have had it inside the tent anyway, but she lived and learned the hard way never to use a gas stove in a tent, as its not just carbon monoxide build up you have to worry about! It was in the 1980s when pierce cans were more common.
I think the screw in ones are much safer, and I've not heard of one of those exploding as the seal to the burner is much better. I could be wrong, but I've never known of one going up, so I guess it's a much rarer occurrence if at all.

 

[Pattree]

Not so much an explosion more a sheet of flame from a little camping gaz long ago. From what I remember it wasn’t first go because it happened at the start of breakfast. My mate kicked it into the river.

 

[Erbswurst]

My colleague uses such a suitcase stove.
It's a CampingGaz product though and only used with CampingGaz cartridges.
But I have seen such kind of cartridges for a fraction of the price in somehow foreign food shops somewhere while I was hanging posters, may have been an Asian food shop, Arabic, Turkish or African, somehow specialising in imported food.

If I see the yellow one here, I assume that the few Euros more for the original blue one is a good investment...

 

[demographic]

I put one of the blue camping Gaz pierce to use ones on a fire when I was a naughty teenager.
Retired to a safe distance... first the dent blew out to a bump on the bottom, launched a bit of charcoal about the area.

Then maybe another thirty seconds later it blew the bottom off it with a reasonably decent boom.
The gas then caught giving a reasonable fireball so I'm glad I wasn't anywhere near it.
So, in my case, it's not the manufactuurers fault that I was obsesssed with things that went boom as a teenager, no kittens were harmed during this misuse of dangerous objects and me and my mate tidied up after ourselves.

Ahh, happy days (innocent whistle).

 

[Laurentius]

Not long ago I had a bit of an accident refilling a butane lighter when leaking gas ignited. Fortunately I was outside at the time and nothing else caught fire, but it was a scary moment when I was momentarily engulfed in flame.

 

[Pattree]

Ahh, happy days (innocent whistle).

Understand perfectly. I wonder that no one questioned the quantity of weed killer and soda water CO2 cylinders that went into our house when I was a teenager.

At school we were taught how to attach nitro groups to bromine to make a disinfectant. We were 17 and good at chemistry. OF COURSE we did it first with iodine and then with glycerine. I’m still here.

I won’t use gas cylinders. They are a petroleum derived consumable (just like the diesel in my car). I have given talks to scout groups about the extraction of iron, manufacture of steel for the canister, copper for the collar (screw in), pigments and chemical extraction and manufacture for the paint and transport for all of it up to the retailer. In those days I didn’t talk about the huge carbon footprint per gram of fuel manufactured nor of the waste disposal.

But I use a none exploding steel Kelly Kettle fire base and Hobo don’t I? Why not an open fire? Because I can cook two meals from scratch (raw) and make coffee on the equivalent of one quarter of an ordinary domestic fuel log. I can usually find enough dead twigs within a few steps of my camp.

Does it ever explode? Just put a lump of chestnut on your fire and ask again


Just for information,
This it’s the big one. The little one weighs 200 gms (Kelly Kettle Hobo and Fire Base). You can just about see it at the back. No fuel to carry.
I have no connection with the company, I’m just a huge fan of the system.

 

[Toddy]

I like my Kelly Kettle, but it's horses for courses.

The wee stoves are mostly kept these days as back up for power loss, but
I do have two of the suitcase ones, and I still have a large stash of the canisters.
I've used the stoves for over twenty years and never had a problem.

I like the simplicity. It's either on, or it's disconnected. There is no dubiety.
Very stable.

I was originally given one by a lorry driving friend of my brother. He said they were common among the long distance drivers, that they could safely brew up in the cab, make a quick meal pretty much anywhere, though in the Alps they had problems getting enough pressure, and that it was worth the difference finding the propane/butane mix.
I don't think they're recommended for use like that now though.

Just really a handy camping tool, or cooking demonstrations

I do like the stability, they take my heavy dyebaths for boiling up outside, and they were excellent when cooking under a flysheet at camp (they also come with a toast making gadget that doubles as a heater ) or even in the opened doorway of my tent for that first brew up, toast and marmite, in the morning.
I have a neat wee kettle that fits brilliantly on it.
Honestly so much less fuss or bother than the petrol stove, and much cheaper than the gaz ones because those tube canisters end up in the end of season sell off I bought four for a fiver last time I bought them and I see them reduced in the shops already with this wet end of summer that we're having.

For sheer speed and oomph, the catalytic stove beats it, so does the rocket stove, but for ease of use, the wee suitcase ones are good things.

 

[Pattree]

I can only suppose that gas fired camping stoves are generally safe given the huge numbers in use.

Indeed @Toddy, horses for courses and we back our preferences.

The mishaps here are surprisingly frequent given the very small sample of the site membership but then I suppose we are heavier users of our stoves than most. Also our stories cover a long timescale.

Still I’m with @Coedwigwr on this one. I won’t use them. If I can’t fire up the KK then I’ll use the M40 with the Svea “Trangia” alcohol burner. I guess those have their own collection of accidents as well but we all choose as we believe and long may it be so.

 

[Toddy]

I like the KK, will happily cook on it as well as brew up, but it needs fuel, and in some places that fuel is a 'spark hazard'. That doesn't sound like something the UK has real issues with, but pine forest ? dry moorland ? so very easy to set something off, even a gorse bush goes up in a blaze with the wrong spark.

I think it really is horses for courses.

I too felt that the canisters were such a waste of resources, then someone pointed out that they're really just tin cans, and pretty much every household in the land uses those and throws them away. I checked with our local council and the canisters are treated just like the aerosol spray cans and recycled accordingly.

M

 

[Pattree]

Totally agree about sparks.
I’m working on a spark guard but right now it’s dirty to carry and it’s fragile.

That’s what alcohol burners are for
Which KK have you got?
I have a 1.6L (Base Camp) but I’ve not used it for hot water for a while. I do sometimes use the base and stove. In the last two years I’ve used the little 0.6L (Trekker) with equally little Hobo for nearly everything. A military (125ml) “Trangia” alcohol burner sits permanently in the bottom of the bag. It’s not the most fuel efficient way of using it but it works.

The painted screw-in canister isn’t quite a tin can but I do take your point.

I am amazed that the puncture type canisters are still available but then we aren’t hearing of many disasters so they must be OK.

 

[Toddy]

Alcohol burners are all too often a mess though, and often really compromised by any wind. I have them, and I have one of the greenheat gel ones too. That's actually cleaner to use I find, but you do have to decant the gel unless you're happy burning the sachets.

I don't know which KK I have. It's over twenty years old now, it was the biggest one available when I bought it. Nothing posh about it, just a cork bung, but it's had a lot of use. The base 'pan' has had a lot of use too, it's a good thing to do a fry up with the hot embers once the kettle has boiled
Filthy to handle though with all the soot and crud over the years. I made a wrap for it from a bit of spare wax fabric. It always goes in the same way round so the outside stays clean. It works so long as no one screws up my system.
I do scrub it (green scourer and Astonish works wonders) but who has time to do that every time you use it ?

Most reliable canister stove I have is a Catalytic one. It just does not ever blow out A bit bulky and heavy to lug, but y'know ? sometimes it's worth it

 

[Pattree]

Gel?? GELL? What’s wrong with the old fashioned purple potion? (Methylated Spirit)
I have flooded the base of my big one with meths and fired it but it takes far too much and it’s probably as dangerous as any gas canister.
The Trangia burner is safe and fully protected from wind inside the fire base of the little KK Trekker.

Besides the gaz stove mentioned above, the only explosion I’ve experienced was a full kitchen coal fired Rayburn. My fault, I opened the fire door too soon after fuelling and it blew back into my face. Burned off my eyebrows and hair at the front and singed my eyelids. Nothing terrible but I was too sore to shave for a few weeks. By the time I could have shaved, I didn’t want to. The result is the miniature portable ecosystem that I carry with me now.

 

[Kadushu]

I had one of those pierce top cannister stoves, about £4 from Lidl. To be fair it didn't leak and worked well until one winter I was caught out in an unexpected snow storm and it was just too cold for the fuel to vapourise. So I took the cannister off and lit the top of it directly. Luckily it just burnt with a lazy yellow flame which sooted the pot up but got the job done. Not a recommended practice.

Nowadays I use alcohol stoves because I like the versatility of alcohol and the simplicity of the stoves.

 

[tim_n]

I use the little suitcase ones fairly often with scouts and have also used it at the moot. At the moot I used an amazon basics cast iron pan (with frying pan lid) and worked fine.

I have only seen them explode when, as previously noted, someone puts something much bigger over the top of them that overlaps the gas area. I was a first aider at an event where someone was warming a single catering bain marie over two of them and one exploded showing them in not quite boiling water. We recently had someone in our scout district get injured when one with perished rubber rings also went pop.

Risk assessment says "teach stove safety to kids and inspect before issuing out".

Are they dangerous? Only really through misuse and misunderstanding really.

 

[slowworm]

I've used those suitcase stoves for years with various makes of canister without problems.

I've recently bought a replacement and noted the housing for the gas has changed to protect the canister more. I assume there has been a few problems with overheating so they're made changes to the design.