Petrol was not legal in camp stoves in Norway until Norway became part of the EEA agreement in the mid-90-ties. So none petrol-only stoves was on the norwegian marked before that. The stoves that was made for both petrol and kerosene, was marked with something saying kerosene only.
That explains a lot. I seem to recall that my Coleman 550B that I bought in the late -80's had something about that on the box, but nothing on the stove itself. it is a "Norwegian market" 550B, with Norwegian text on the stove. It came with the petrol/white gas generator installed, I did no "fettling" on that stove at all for the first 10 years I had it, burning only unleaded pump gas. Tron
That's as I remembered, afoton. I am curious about the reasons for the older Norwegian ban. Of course, we all understand that naptha/petrol is a much more volatile fuel and presents risks that kerosene does not. And that as a result, there could be some that would argue against its use. But how did it come about that it was actually legally banned in hardy Norway for camp stove use? Was there some major bad incident? Just pure curiosity on my part...
Personally I have not heard about any particular accidents with petrol stoves in Norway, only accidents related to the use of profane/canister stoves (gas leakage, nasty and fatal accidents) and accidents related to Optimus 111 in the Norwegian army, usually user faults with alcohol as priming fluid. In Norway, until 1994 I think stoves needed an approval according to the fire hazars law in order to be marketed for sale in the Norwegian market, and the fire hazard authorities simply would not approve petrol fueled campstoves. Since our close adaption to, and trade agreement with the EU, we can no longer have separate approvals for goods that are to be sold in the market, we have to adapt the EU rules. So anything approved in the EU (E-mark) is approved in Norway. Tron
The E mark is actually an UN mark and not an EU mark. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Formed in 1947 and Norway has been a member since the start. Michael
There has been few accidents with petrol and camp stoves in Norway, because petrol has not been used that much in camp stoves. Most accidents has been with lpg-cacanister stoves, because most norwegian use them, and with Trangia, because many think of spirit as harmless. Høgeset leirskole burned down because of user fault with petrol camp stove. https://www.nrk.no/ho/primus-var-arsak-til-leirskolebrannen-1.12269755
The article says the fire started when som pupils at this school (Danish pupils, it is a "camp school" that receive pupils from all over Norway and apparently Denmark too, for a week at a time, to learn outdoor skills and activities) filled the stoves tank from a larger container, inside with a stove lit nearby. Kind regards Tron
I have an older Optimus made the same way, works the same way. Curious what a new one costs. What did you have to fork over? I saw only one place that had them. Out of stock everywhere else. They wanted $101 (US dollars).
I think I paid appr. USD 110. I would say that a used, original Swedish made SVEA is a more sensible purchase, but these stoves were not sold where I live, Norway, even though they were made just a few hours drive from where I live. It seems most of them went to the US market. Kind regards Tron
According to the instructions I've read for the 123R, Svea warned against running the stoves dry, because doing so can char the top end of the wick, turning it into partly solid charcoal, which is nowhere near as efficient at lifting fuel up to the burner. Their advice was to always shut the stove down before you run out of fuel, let it cool down, and then refill. I take your point that haing to refill more frequently is a nuisance, but it's a trade off between bulk and run-time. As always, the engineering designers had to make a judgement call - and compromise between the conflicting requirements of different customers is inevitable. With best regards, Gunner
