LPG cooker run from vehicle main LPG tank

[Ed Kershaw]

Hi guys. Can anyone here advise me if the cooker in a camper van can run from the same vehicle's LPG underslung tank hence doing away with need to carry separate 6kg bottles? 

[Rojie]

6 hours ago, Ed Kershaw said:

Hi guys. Can anyone here advise me if the cooker in a camper van can run from the same vehicle's LPG underslung tank hence doing away with need to carry separate 6kg bottles? 

 

Hello Eamonn,

 

Welcome to the Forum.

[Neil_turbo]

It depends if your underslung tank has a vapour take off, mine doesnt so i'm the same as you with another gas bottle on board

[pcous]

Hi Eamonn,

Sorry, didn't see your post earlier. We have an LPG conversion and gas cooking for our Gen1 Alphard. I was told by our LPG engineer that you can't draw both liquid and gas from the same tank. The auto LPG gets drawn to the engine compartment as a pressurised liquid, then vapourised by the regulator (by reducing the pressure). As liquid gets used from the tank the remainder of the tank becomes gas. Cooking LPG can be either butane or propane, auto LPG in the UK is propane, so it can be used for cooking; but it can’t be drawn safely from the top of the same tank supplying fuel for the engine.

We installed a small (4.6 litre) Gaslow refillable bottle for cooking, the same size as our old Camping Gaz bottle. The Gaslow is tee'd from the LPG filler, so we fill both the auto tank and the Gaslow at the pump. It’s cheaper than Calor/Camping Gaz refills in the long run and also means you can top-up whenever you want, rather than waiting for the bottle to empty, as with Camping Gaz.

As part of the tee, we had a separate manual valve fitted to the inlet to the Gaslow bottle (located alongside existing outlet valve at top of gas cupboard for easy access), which needs to be closed after filling to ensure that the two parts of the system are then isolated from each other when in use. Incidentally, because autogas in the UK is propane, which gasses at a lower temperature than the butane used in our original Camping Gaz bottles, there’s a potential bonus for winter camping...