Dangerous Gas Situation You Need to Look Out

Is your hot water system located in the right place?

Make sure it is. You don’t want to encounter a dangerous gas situation like this.

In these videos, we show you how important it is to make sure your hot water system is in a safe location.

Find out what’s the right distance to put your hot water system and gas bottles.

We have a gas situation

We came to this house about six o’clock at night. The lady was rushing off. She wanted to get a hot water system lit but there was a gas leak on the tier on top of the bottles. It was pouring out but these bottles have just been replaced.

Another trouble is there is a source of ignition zone.  The LPG bottles have a zone around them that you’re not allowed any source of ignition. You can see there are the hot water system and aircon that could be a source of ignition.

The measurement needs to be 500 above the bottles and 500 out to the side, and then it comes down to 1.5 from the center. You can see that hot water system is totally in the wrong spot, should never be installed there.

The bottles should have never even been replaced.

The Solution

The hot water system is 12 years old, so what we did was, instead of trying to move the hot water system to another location, we moved the bottles away from the source of ignition.

We also put a new regulator on the bottles. Some of the old regulators only go up to maybe 200 megajoules. But when the hot water is turned on, it uses a fair bit of gas, so the unit thinks it as a leak and shuts it down. So we put a new beautiful 500-megajoule regulator instead so it works better.

And then we put a new Rinnai Infinity, which is far cheaper to run than these old hot water systems. It is a lot more efficient because there’s no pilot light. We can also have that a bit higher and that will be outside that source of ignition area.

Make sure you avoid this dangerous situation. Check if your hot water system is in a safe location.

If you need help to sort out a similar problem, or need someone to help you make sure your HWS is in the right location, give us a call. We’ll be happy to give you the best plumbing advice.