VAN LIFE: Building a DIY Propane / LPG / Gas System for Van Dwelling

So whilst we're in the final stages of completing our tiny home, we had to find a fuel source for our stove, mainly so we can have endless cups of tea. Our main cooking source is going to be LPG or propane, and there are some downsides to this which we will discuss. But the main benefits are that one, in our mind it's the most responsive way to cook that we've Two, if you keep your appliances clean, the flame is clean burning, efficient and very cheap compared to using gasoline or diesel. Three, we can easily and relatively safely store large amounts of fuel, compared to say alcohol for an alcohol burner. That will help us extend our time off grid and on the move. And four, we should be able to use propane gas at high altitudes. We'll let you know how it performs in our travel series when we're up in the Himalayan mountains trying to brew a cup of tea at 20,000 feet. Okay, so one of the main downsides for us is actually finding propane in the first place. It can be quite hard to come by. And sometimes when you do find a filling station, it can have any number of connections, because it's basically different in all different parts of the world. If you live and travel in the same geographical region, and you're outside of Europe, you will not have this problem. So it's not an issue. But for us, availability is a big problem. The other major downside is that carrying a explosive noxious gas is quite dangerous. We haven't died yet, obviously, but some people have. So for those of you who aren't into having a gas like this on board, there are other options which we will link below. We, however, have decided to go with propane. So we have a two burner sink stove combo. We have a very small form factor camper. So this is the most space saving design possible, which still gives us just enough room to cook our meals. Heads up, it's not legal to do Qigong yourself in all countries. So check before you go the DIY route. Ben and I installed the propane gas system ourselves. But propane is no joke. The consequences of not doing it properly can literally be fatal. So we're completely ignoring British standards and doing it the safest way possible, the Australian way. In Britain, the standard is to use olive style compression fittings. In America and Australia, flare fittings are preferred. Now, flare fittings are much better at handling vibrations and as such are preferred in mobile home installations. Just remember, you will put the nut on before you make the flare fitting, right? The other thing we did for safety was install a weatherproof gas solenoid. So this is the back of our 12 volt solenoid, which we're adding to our gas system, our propane system. We are basically putting this in between our propane cylinder or LPG cylinder and all of the gas appliances in the bus. With the idea that we can press a button to allow the gas to come into the bus. That's a safety thing really, but for a couple of reasons. One, in case for some reason we have a leak inside the bus, we'll know that it's leaking and it will only be able to leak when we're actually trying to use an appliance. So it won't leak at night time or something when we're sleeping. And the other is in case we have an accident or something when we're driving along on a rocky road. If one of the lines under the bus gets ruptured, it won't have any LPG in it because it won't be able to get past this solenoid. So we are being very, very safe. It doesn't fill me with confidence driving with a bomb underneath the bus, but with the belt and braces approach, I think we're going to be just fine. Right, so this is our test battery. Here's our solenoids. When you connect the battery, it should make a clunking sound because this is a normally closed solenoid, which means it will be normally closed unless you apply power to it. It's, I think, IP65 rated so that it's waterproof and can live quite happily under the bus. However, we will be adding a little bit of sealant around here just to be doubly sure that no moisture will get in. Test it. Okay, ready? Yep, that's it. That's the clicking noise we wanted. So let's try. It's actually about to blow through already. Hang on. That's it. The solenoid does provide that extra peace of mind and we're very happy that gas can't leak into our home when we're not expecting it. I will say that before we do any extended trips on rough roads, we always turn off our propane supply at the tank. Even with the correct tools for the job, bending this copper pipe to fit and follow the odd shape of our vehicle was quite challenging and it took us most of the day. To adhere to the correct standards, we had to do it in one single piece from tank to appliance. If you're doing this too, you can make it easier by installing the gas lines before you install any furniture. Now we can fit this to the gas tank. The safety conscious Aussies are smart to say that there should be no gas line junctions inside the vehicle. That's mainly because you could have a leak there and there should be a properly rated shut off valve before each appliance. I think this is the best bit of sculpting I've done in my life. Quite happy with this. So we've got three eights gas line with some plastic kind of conduit, flexible conduit for protection in the areas where the gas lines run under the bus. Rubber would have been better, but we didn't have anything rubber. Plastic will do just fine. Three eights is possibly a little large, but it's future proof we can install additional appliances in the future should we need to. All of this copper pipe work under the van is necessary because we're moving our propane tank from inside to outside to free up living space in our Kombi. Honestly, that's pretty, it's almost professional, which is just as well. There's a serious lack of gas men in Jersey because there's not a lot of gas in Jersey and there's not any certified camper van gas fitters. So we wouldn't be able to get certified anyway, so we may as well do it ourselves. So it's cost us about $50 to get all of the tools required to do this. Parts are a bit more than that, but yeah, we're cracking on. Full day's work and we're uncertified gas people. Hopefully we don't kill ourselves from this. What do you reckon, Leah? Feeling confident? That's not true, Australia. We're very certified gas fitters. The Aussies aren't going to let us into Australia with this camper van unless this gas system was fitted by an authorized gas fitter. So we're going to have to get you certified at some point anyway, which hopefully is just a box ticking exercise. We are installing this whole system according to Australian standards, so they're very, very strict. You can only have 15 centimeters of spacing between very fancy stainless steel and rubber coated... What's that called? P-clip. P-clamp clamps to basically hold the gas lines. So we're trying to do it according to Australian standards, even if the Australians don't let us in. Pass me a wrench, love. Or throw some other random piece of metal at me. Take three of getting the gas tank in. We have a propane tank. We're trusting our propane tank to four nuts and some blue thread lock. Hopefully this thing does not come down. Lost a bit of ground clearance here, but we also need to be able to cook and shower, so this is on here. Thank you Go Westie for giving us this amazing cooking facility. It does suck that we lost a little ground clearance here, but we do feel much better about having such a large supply outside of the bus. Previously, we had our gas bottle inside the Kombi and we still see a lot of people doing this. Please avoid it if possible, guys. We found gas leaks on multiple occasions despite changing our hoses often. If you have no choice but to install your gas tank inside your vehicle, you should install your gas bottle inside a certified gas locker and at the very least have a drop vent for the gas, which is heavier than air, to escape to the atmosphere. That's telling me it's on. We have also installed a low voltage wired to the 12 volt system gas detector, which can basically detect noxious gases before they can take effect. We've installed that at the bed level here, so if there's any gases in here, this thing will definitely tell us. It basically picks up butane, ethane, chloroform and methane. No, it doesn't do methane. If it did do methane, it would be going off all the time with being in the Kombi. It's a true story. Yeah, chloroform, butane, ethane, trichlorothane, whatever that is. Basically, propane has butane in it, so it will detect that if there's a leak and it will go off and let us know that we should evacuate the vehicle. Also, unfortunately, in some places in Europe, it's been reported that people put gases through the vents of your camper van to knock you out and then rob you in your sleep. Having this alarm is also a double protection. If someone ever tried to do such a stealthy attack on us, we'd be prepared. There's a bunch of these devices, some of which run on battery power, some of which can be wired into a 12 volt or 20 volts system and are ideal for camper vans and anyone that lives in a camper van. Some of them can also detect carbon monoxide, which is pretty important. We'll link to that on our blog below so you can see the best options available. We've done the hard work for you. Subscribe. You're welcome. One more thing. It might be obvious to some, but it's worth noting that you must use PTFE tape on all threaded connections. If it's a gas fitting, you'll need the thicker gas certified tape. Surprisingly, even with the tape, we found that we still have some initial leak issues in our water and gas system. Hi, Future Ben here with a word of wisdom. We've been using PTFE tape, otherwise known as Teflon tape on our fittings. However, they leaked or weeped rather and quite frustrating really. I've had a lot of success with Teflon tape in the past, but on these fittings, I don't know whether the tolerances are greater or something, but they did weep. We are now putting both Teflon tape and liquid PTFE, also known as pipe dope, I believe, to plumbers. We're putting both of those on. Hopefully, after this, we'll have no more leaks. I would recommend that you do the same. I guess the fittings in a vehicle are subject to more movement and vibrations than a fitting in a house, and perhaps that is why we've been having problems. I highly recommend that you use both. Next up, we're talking about our water system for extended off-grid travel. Stay tuned for that. If you want to check out our build series, that's linked over there. If you want to know all the tips and hacks we have for van life and living off-grid on the move, check out our expert guide to van life down there. See you next time, guys.