General Idea
Propane! It's simple but propane scares me and seems like everyone should have a healthy fear of gases that can kill you in the night.
Basically we have a small propane tank with a shutoff valve and regulator mounted external to the truck. This is used for a stove top and a furnace. For the electrical bits which overlap with this, see the Electrical overview. A push button controlled shutoff valve lets us fully disconnect the propane from the inside of the camper without needing to turn the knob on the tank.
We have small propane tanks - 5lbs. This is what we used when we just had a camp stove and didn't want to keep buying those green bottles all the time, so we just kept using it for the truck. We have a backup one as well in case it runs out, but really we don't have an issue. Between cooking and the furnace we don't really use that much overall.
Schematic
Parts List
Here are the big things. Stuff not included since its sort of generic... or some more info on some of it...
- We used all copper flare fittings - a bunch of people sell these. Anderson Metals was a good choice for us. Basically.. use all 3/8". These will usually have a 45degree angle on the flare - just check ot make sure. You will need a fare tool and pipe cutter! I listed the flare tool but no the pipe cutter below.
- Copper tubing. You want soft 3/8" outer dim tubing. Tubing should always be listed as outer diameter (OD - with pipes listed as inner diameter.) We got some from a local hardware store.
| Ref | Thing | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A | 5lb Manchester Tank | Small but we had one already. We keep a spare in the cab just in case. |
| B | Propane Bracket 8" | For mounting the 5lb tanks to the outside. Generally we also use a small length of chain and padlock to lock the tank to the mount since I'm paranoid about someone stealing them. |
| C | 12-Inch Braided RV Propane Pigtail Hose | From the propane tank to the valve. The ones with level meters on them seem... well the meter does not really give you linear indication of level more a "oh its empty now" so we skipped that. Got a simple one. |
| D | External Propane Box | Really just a metal box... but modified to hold all the propane stuff. These nicely have a bottom removable plate that you can mount all the stuff to before putting it in the box... makes it a bit easier. |
| E | 1/4" NPT Male x 1/4" NPT Female | Right angle - from pigtail to valve |
| F | Solenoid Lock Off Valve LPG Propane 12V | On off that we can control from inside. We leave this off unless using the propane. |
| G | Propane 2 Stage Regulator | We also got some mounting brackets like this to help hold the regulator. They sell these with an intended mounting orientation... just make sure it lines up with intended location. |
| H | Flare-Flare Blukhead | Used to pass from outside of truck to inside |
| I | Flare T-Junction | One of these used to split the feeds to furnace and stove. |
| J | Flare to 1/2" | Flare to what the stove wants - stove datasheet/user manual will show fitting needed. |
| K | Flare Shutoff Valve | We have this on the furnace line - in the summer we just totally shut off the furnace propane line. Maybe not needed but nice to remove unused junctions when not needed. |
| L | 3/8" Flare x 3/8" Male Pipe | What the furnace asks for - check datasheet/user manual for fitting needed. |
| M | Dometic DFSD 12111 | 12kBTU - seems to work well for us? |
| N | Honeywell Home CT50K1028 | Took a while to find one that went low enough - we wanted something that could keep us just above freezing. Look for "Garage" thermostats, or simmilar. Most house termostats have a lower temp limit that is much too high. |
| O | Propane Monitor | We got the "MTI INDUSTRIES 20-441-P-BL Detector Propane" - seems like they models are a bit different now, so I linked a similar one. Anyway... probably the most important item on the list. |
| P | Ramblewood GC2-37P 2 Burner Gas Cooktop | Great... but two issue we had. First is that the stove top components are not fixed well - there are some covers/metal bits on each burner that need to be removed before we drive. Small thing but just another step thats annoying. We built some special storage for these so not so bad. Second... I wish the small burner was in the back, but its in the front. I frequently want to simmer something while doing something upfront... but the burners are the wrong way! Otherwise... its really worked out great. |
| - | Flare Fitting | The basic... used a bunch. |
| - | Short Flare-Flare Segment | You can only make a flare section so short easily - so sometimes need to buy something like this for a nice short transition. |
| - | Flare Tool | We got one like the linked one - but not that one. That style at least worked well for us with not too much trouble. |
| - | Tube Bending Tool | Got one from a local hardware store - there are a ton... its a simple tool seems like not a big deal which one you get as long as it can fit the dim of the copper tubing. |
Other stuff not really part of the system but useful...
- We keep an adapter for those green 1lb tanks around. In a pinch we can cook off one of those that we keep stashed away just in case.
- I got a little plug like this to keep the propane hose clean when the tank is not attached. Nice for when we are not actively using the truck.
Hows and Whys
So first off... I did not want to use propane for the heating system. 100% would have rather run this off of the main truck gas tank. But.. as we have a slide in camper, that becomes complicated if you ever want to remove the camper.
Second, our furnace selection was a bit reduced since we did not really have the option of bottom-exit exhaust. If you look at a lot of the heaters people put in vans, you need to drill down thru the floor. Well we have a truck bed below the camper floor that I was not ready to drill holes in. So... we found a nice one anyway.
Before You Go, or First Night Out
Bring everything needed to tighten fittings. Also, some dish soap, a small Tupperware, and some paper towels or a small rag.
- Mix a little bit of the dish soap with water in the Tupperware. Use the rag/paper towel to liberally wipe soapy water on all joints (avoid dripping water all in your furnace of course)
- Open all valves but don't turn on stove or furnace
- Listen and look - if anything is bubbling at all, close valves, tighten, apply some more soapy water, and try again.
- Do this until there are no bubbles!
I did this in the parking lot... but also brought all the tools with for the first couple times out. Was worth it - had to fix some leaks out on the road.
Mounting Propane Tank to our All Terrain Camper
- I cut the whole inner paneling off behind where I wanted to mount to propane. This was to expose the aluminum studs to known what I could mount to. Perfectly fine in my case, as it will be inside a cabinet
- Fitted a piece of plywood that would span the whole area. This will be fixed to the aluminum studs with some self tapping screws
- To keep the external siding from being deformed, you need 1" spacers (or same as stud depth) behind the plywood where the propane mount will sit. You want the stackup to be Propane Mount -> External Siding -> Solid Spacer -> Plywood. If there is open space between the plywood and the siding, when you tighten down the propane mount it will bow in the external siding.
- Drill mount holes for propane mount... mount...
- I used some butyl tape on the edges of the propane mount, and some silicon sealant on each bolt, plus some blue thread locker and split washers on the mount bolts.
Pictures
<working on it!>
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