My Thetford fridge which I use a lot on gas on non EHU sites is burning lots of gas and there is a strong smell of exhaust fumes near caravan. In under 24 hours went through a full 6kg of propane gas.
This is fault started this week. There is no exhaust fume smell in caravan and the carbon monoxide alarm is ok.
Anyone offer advise as to the cure
Danny
Mine used to use about 250g a day. Wow your flame must be cranked up to get through that amount. I don't really know much about the gas side of things, does the thermostat turn the flame up and down?
You don't say what model fridge it is, or what van you've got so we can find out for ourselves, so answers will be 'typical' gas usage figures that may be a little out if you have one of the larger sized fridges.
It's a tiny single jet flame that normally consumes around 18 grams of gas per hour MAX! It looks more like a pilot light flame rather than a main heating flame! It should consume less under normal operation conditions as the thermostat will regulate temp and reduce gas usage.
You are using 250 g/h if you've gone through a 6Kg cylinder in 24 hrs, that's around 14 times as much as it would normally do! That's up there with a huge roaring gas BBQ flame IF it is truly being burnt! I'm not at all sure that any fault with the fridge flame would or could consume so much gas without destroying the fridge and probably the van with it! - nothing on the burner is built to cope with such a ferocious flame!
Inefficient combustion still seems unlikely, as the jet hole is tiny and limits the gas flow, inefficient combustion would more likely reduce how well the fridge chilled.
You do normally get a little waft of exhaust fumes from time to time, but not excessively noticeable in my experience.
As to solutions. You haven't unwittingly got something like a water heater running flat out all the time, that gas consumption fits much closer to that type usage.
Have you had the fridge chimney/flue cleaned recently? - when running heavily on gas, they should be cleaned 2-3 times a year. If it's sooted up, that may increase exhaust fumes.
A leak looks favourite for such heavy gas usage! I've known people empty a cylinder in less than a day that way. When did you last change your pig tail? - they can go permeable over time and gas just leaks out through the walls of the hose! My last hose failed that way, still about a year inside it's normal 5 year life!
As mentioned on a previous post, really not a good idea to mess about with gas unless you are an expert, risk of explosion, fire and Carbon Monoxide poisoning! A mobile engineer is probably your best option, you may think that's expensive, but so is going through a 6Kg cylinder of gas every day!
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Topic: Thetford fridge burning too much gas
via mobile 27/4/2025 at 3:21pm
