This email was recently forwarded to me - FYI. Norm "Business: Scramble to determine safety of gas cookers State and territory regulators are scrambling to determine the safety of portable gas stoves as stories emerged on social media of burns and explosions caused by the devices, banned from sale in NSW last week. Concerns over the safety of the popular stoves, sometimes described as butane "lunch box" cookers, were raised last week after NSW Fair Trading said a problem with their shut-off and safety valves had been identified. "This means they could overheat and possibly explode, causing serious injury," Fair Tr... Read the full story http://abc.net.au/news/6296160 Download the ABC app: http://ab.co/app *** DISCLAIMER *** This message was sent to you using the "Share" facility on the ABC iPad app. To make a comment about this email, contact us : http://www.abc.net.au/contact/ The ABC is not responsible for the content of this email, and anything said in this email does not necessarily reflect the ABC's views. Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail. The information contained in this email and any attachment is confidential and may contain legally privileged or copyright material. It is intended only for the use of the addressee(s). If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you are not permitted to disseminate, distribute or copy this email or any attachments. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system. The ABC does not represent or warrant that this transmission is secure or virus free. Before opening any attachment you should check for viruses. The ABC's liability is limited to resupplying any email and attachment."
I've one of those here, fire it up now and then, watch it like hawk, wouldn't even have it if it wasn't free, NIB. No worries here. I suspect these sods put a very large pot or pan and baked the butane cannister but GOOD! Murph
My understanding this that this can happen if they are used with the pot stand upside down. Quailty brands, like kovea will not start if the stand is the wrong way up.
Interestingly the Gasmate ones quoted I would of considered one of the good brands. I was always under the impression the cheap ones had plastic tabs holding the cannister and those with metal were ok but also I wonder how easy it is to mis install the canister. These have been around a long time now but so have the stories about them exploding. I wouldnt touch one with a barge pole except maybe to push its smoldering remnants into the creek.
I have one of these that I loaned to a friend to use for a weekend camping trip. The stove was returned unused as the friend could not figure out why the stove would not work (I had shown them repeatedly before they took it from my house.) It happens to be a Gasmate branded stove, and I found that they had not turned the hob over, so could not engage the cartridge. That being the case, I wondered at the simplicity of the safety precaution (and of my friend.....) I have had several of these with various different brands mentioned, and the first thing checked has always been the safety measures. So far, all have proven adequate. I have kept only one, and donated the rest to my non-stovie friends for emergency cookers. I feel happy knowing that they have something to use should such need arise. I reckon the over-sized pot scenario is the more likely. Best regards, Mike.
Mine is the (original?) Campingaz one. Works pretty well, my sister in law used it for a while and was happy with it. It was kept as an emergency stove (read: butane bottle for cooking empty as were all spare ones, I have 4 of these ). It now sits in the garage, dreaming of better days. The Chinese ones are less than half the price so I guess one gets what one pays for! Best regards, Wim
I must be the square peg in the round hole because i'we had mine for more than 10 yrs and the most adverse thing happening is gas canisters running to cold to cook. Many a time cooking in a 12liter pot.
Hi everyone. I received the forwarded email from Normo just as I was about to retire, the first thing I checked was Ebay and sure enough there are stoves of that design on sale, there are also gas canister adaptors & the regulating hose similar to the S9/TK800 replacement stove regulator hose which a number of others have bought so as to modify the USA made collapsible Hank Roberts stoves for which cylinders are in very short supply. There is definitely a case for alarm bells to ring & quite possibly fettlers can save the day by looking into the viability of converting these stoves to a remote gas cylinder supply. One likely cause could well be the use of large cooking pots which cause the flame to travel closer to the cylinder plus the heat reflection from a clean metal cooking pot, they're probably quite safe if only small cooking pots such as metal military mugs are used allowing more heat to encircle the pot & escape upwards. The best advice would be to avoid using these stoves until either a solution is found or they are recalled.
We have one of these cheapies' and I recall that the cannister won't engage unless the pan support is put on the right way up. Its been used a few times and has not given trouble though, and wifey' likes it because it has instant ignition and is easy to use, notwithstanding being very cheaply built... If I feel inclined to use it again after seeing .au link, i'll keep a close eye on it and check whether the gas cannister is getting hot...
I googled for similar incidents and came up with this article which seems to find some additional reason for failures reported in some similar (same?) stoves.
I wish I liked those stoves. The canister in the enclosed area is what makes me not like them and for the reasons in the linked articles. I had two of them, which must be knock-offs of the ones mentioned. On one of them, you could put the canister in and not have to align it into the mechanism and it would still work. There was a flimsy piece of metal that was supposed to keep your canister aligned properly that broke off. If you don't have it aligned properly, I could see how the stove could become a hazard by the canister coming loose and jetting fuel by it being partially open. Crazy little thing. I also didn't like how warm the canister got inside the compartment after using one of these. Too hot to touch, means too hot for the fuel inside and I didn't even use an over-sized pot or pan. sam
I have always liked those types of stoves. More for boat use. They use very cheap canisters that are available anywhere in the world, they have a good size base and heft so they stay put. But all of them usually have a warning hot to use a pan that will cover the fuel canister. The better brands have safety mechanisms that the cheaper asian knockoffs do not. With that said, there are millions of those in use all over the world, any asian household will have one, many asian restaurants that offer tableside cooking have them. If one or two exploded that shouldn't be a reason to ban all stoves with that design, which is what seems to be the case. There are a few cases of butane canister stoves exploding and even more cases of people suffocating because they used space heaters in tents. Then all of a sudden some people called for a ban. I find this type of behavior to be maddening. Do you know why fuel bottles sold in the US now have those silly childproof caps? Because one mentally challenged young man drank from it while camping. My favorite anecdote is a law on the books in NY, possibly even the US as a whole. "It is unlawful for one to cross the street while using an ipod" Not mp3 player, not music device, they named a make and model specifically. I found that to be hilarious. But I am a Darwinian, I feel that if one wants to do silly things, it is not everyones responsibility to keep them safe from themselves.
