It is pretty easy to mistakenly have propane coming from the stove by just user error/inattention. I've done it. Luckily noticed before an explosion. The incident was caused by something in the camper falling against and pushing on the stove knob in such a way that it opened and kept the gas open. Forgot exactly what fell. The incident was several years ago. But afterwards I made sure to check propane is shutoff when not in use. Over the years Westfalia has tried to improve the "foolproofness" of the stove. On my '94 Westy the stove knobs are on top of the stove. That way, as long as one closes the lid after using the stove nothing can fall onto the knobs as happened in my Vanagon Westy. Late Vanagon Westys have the flame sensor shutoff. However in the low probability event (but with hundreds of thousands of campers worldwide likely to happen sooner or later), that something both hits the knob and hold/jams it in the turned and pushed in position the flame sensor is bypassed. My '82 westy stove doesn't have a flame sensor. Knobs are secured by requiring a push and turn operation as in the later camper, but gas will stay on without a flame. (Fridge thankfully has the flame sensor) Martin -- Martin Jagersand University of Alberta http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~jag/ |
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