Gas line emergency repair.

[rmkrum]

Amen. And keep in mind that the best place to be fighting an RV Fire is from the outside. My use of the fire bottle on the inside is to get the family and dogs out as an escape only tool.

Don't be trying to save 'stuff'. Only lives matter, stuff does not. In case of fire, get out and stay out.


Sent from my pocket Internet using Airstream Forums

[switz]

Keep the hot dogs and buns in the tow vehicle......

[RamblinManGa]

Hi from AZ. . . I was driving East thru NM, & came upon a horse trailer complete with 2 horses, with one of its wheels on fire. The owner was furiously throwing dirt on the fire. I stopped & extinguished it with the 5# FE I carry in my truck, & no horses were harmed ! (bought a new one at next truck stop). You never know, do you. . . .regards, Craig

[carl2591]

I prefer the long lighter method.. it allow for a better display of the flaming gas. With a match you pull you hand back way to quick..

Or I get out the combustible gas detector and check with that. (the lighter is more fun!! but it scares the clients sometimes.)

Originally Posted by Ken J

Oh - always checks for leak on repairs such as this - a lighted match works best

[Ken J]

Yes but the gas detector is not as reliable

[NevadaGeo]

Originally Posted by J. Morgan

Having spent a good part of my life on a farm, I learned that sometimes a person has to work with what they have to "get it done".

A little ingenuity can go a long way to meeting this end and can be be safe at the same time.

No matter what a person does, he should be willing to think the process through and consider the possible implications.

Respectfully, you think that my emergency repair was unsafe, but it proved to be perfectly safe for the job I required of it, and then some.

Why do you assume that my repair worked because of "luck" and not a well thought out and completed execution?

Superat stultitia.

Bravo J.!
The world needs more farmers that can analyse a situation and make the materials on hand work till you get the "proper approved specificated numbered barcoded boxed and plastic sealed parts" that usually have the wrong one in the box. Yesh, we ran the farm shop natural gas all winter one year through a garden hose on top of the snow until we could dig up the line through the frost. Test question, does natural gas rise or sink into the snow?

ICC Special Inspector 1126....

[J. Morgan]

My guess is that the methane is absorbed by snow, but this is just a very mildly educated guess....


Superat stultitia.

[Foiled Again]

Originally Posted by WayneG

Not trying to hijack the thread but I have a hair raising Propane leak story for you...
Last October I had my 84 Excella 270 motorhome at a festival in NY. I was in a farm field and a old Travco motorhome settled in about 20' parallel to my rig.
The owner (who will remain anonymous) was an old friend and he just bought the Travco as his first motorhome. He barely had enough money to put gas in this thing, and he was planning on living in it at festivals in the North East, this was his maiden run.

We chatted for a bit and I went to bed that night and the next morning there was a lot of commotion outside.
I heard calls for fire extinguishers needed, so I got up to take a look and black smoke was coming from the Travco.
....

It turns out this is what happened: I guess the RV fridge died in his new wheels so they replaced it with a mini electric fridge. (Many of you can guess what comes next)
In the morning they wanted to cook some eggs on the RV stove, so he went out to turn on the propane tank and then went back inside to light the stove. Now you can picture a surprised Travco owner, as everything went POOF!
So, leaving out the remainder of the gritty details, he had a lesson that, if you do not plug the gas line that went to the old RV fridge before you turn on the gas and try and run other propane appliances, you may experience extreme embarrassment, or even death.
Fortunately it was only embarrassment and not death or total loss of his motorhome.
Just to be safe, I will not let him park near me again, and maybe I will upgrade to a 10 pound extinguisher, just in case?

WAYNE G - thanks - that's a great and horrible story. It's also a true example of the difference between doing something a bit "iffy" versus being too dumb to live! He IS lucky to be alive. Lucky that half a dozen people had the forethought to have extinguishers and the reflexes to grab and use them in time.

What I think is the core of this thread IS all about is finding a BALANCE. Anyone who owns and uses an Airstream has to be a little impulsive - or the Airstream would never leave the driveway.

Ten years on this forum has shown me that generally the balance of the members does lean strongly away from crazy impulsiveness.

Here's another horrible example. A local teenager died in a gory accident - texting while driving - and a week later a classmate made a video of students leaving her high school in their cars... most of them with cell phones in hand and fingers flying. And all of the parents who were contacted were sure THEIR kids weren't texting - until they saw the video.

Uh - Denial is not a river in Egypt!

An employee of mine with 9 years sobriety once told me about the impact of starting to go to AA Meetings. At the first meeting the experienced people tagged her as 100% impulsive - and EXPLAINED the difference between impulsiveness and forethought. Every time she drank, she ended up in some kind of bad trouble, but she had never realized she could ANTICIPATE ending up in jail or in a strange place with no clothes the next time she drank. Luckily, she grabbed at the chance to WORK the program.

Later, I met a few members of her family. That was an education for ME. They looked SO normal, they acted so normal and then they did so many stoopid things over and over. An old Marine D.I. I used to know defined their situation graphically; "Couldn't figure out how to pour p*ss out of a boot if ya' told them the directions were written on the heel!

------------------------------------------------

We read a lot of threads from totally inexperienced people who have no idea that a VW Bug probably isn't an ideal tow vehicle... but they have the sense to ask. And we have the sense to be kind to them when we respond and impart our experience.

Why shouldn't we be equally kind to experienced members who self-report, often quite humorously, on their less than perfect workarounds. And BTW, who also go back and redo the on-the-fly fix with a permanent one.

And Yes, I am the Airstreamer who made it to last fall's Alumalina with her damaged umbilical extension cord held together with a generous amount of pink duct tape. It worked! And the repair was still holding when I finally replaced the connectors about two weeks ago. (I haven't been out on any trips since, and I'm going down the list of things to fix before I do travel again.)

HAPPY and Safe Trails to you, Paula

[switz]

The older I get, the more I need a printed check list as my mental hard drive seems to be loosing some stored information....

[Boxite]

Originally Posted by Protagonist

Naw, I'm not a native New Orleanian, so I attended an educational system that was ranked higher than 47th out of 50 states. Oklahoma— where I spend the majority of my formative years— might still be in the bottom half academically (ranked 30th these days) but at least they teach better English.

Yeah, I think that (Indian Territory) was one of the FIRST places to ban the use of Native American.

The half-inch of pressure in that line could likely have been contained by duct-tape, ...but using duct-tape for anything but a true emergency... can easily create one. LOL

I suspect the OP probably realized he'd get a rise out of some of us "safety-first" types here (of which I am one.) Glad you got it properly repaired. I'd have used a compression fitting and got on down the road.

[J. Morgan]

Originally Posted by Boxite

I suspect the OP probably realized he'd get a rise out of some of us "safety-first" types here .....

Me stir the pot?




Superat stultitia.

[carl2591]

you are so right on "stirring the pot". duct tape would have worked for the time it was needed, couple days or week, before proper repair was done.

I was four wheeling on beach and see temps a bit high so stopped and opened hood.. noticed a nice spray of water off a place on hose.. let it cool off and relieved pressure.. put 3-4 good wraps of duct tape on the hose, filled up with water and headed back to driving on the beach..

now this is some deep sand in places so lot of slow hard running. that patch lasted another week or so till I was able to get new hose.

duct tape on a low pressure gas line not a problem and would do the same repair.

this post has prompted me to make sure to have a 2 ft section of both sizes of copper, a good tube cutter and flaring tool, couple of compression unions in repair box for just such stuff.. and of course a roll of UL listed duct tape, not the crap you get a home depot.

the OP's repair was most likely better than the copper with the hole..

Originally Posted by Boxite

Yeah, I think that (Indian Territory) was one of the FIRST places to ban the use of Native American.

The half-inch of pressure in that line could likely have been contained by duct-tape, ...but using duct-tape for anything but a true emergency... can easily create one. LOL

I suspect the OP probably realized he'd get a rise out of some of us "safety-first" types here (of which I am one.) Glad you got it properly repaired. I'd have used a compression fitting and got on down the road.