Protect your propane tubing

[Victor Benz]

During my search for a trailer, I looked at many older units. Common to almost all of them, the main propane supply line was iron pipe, running down the middle of the underside of the trailer. There were 1/2" copper tubing take-offs from this center pipe to the individual gas units (furnace, water heater, stove, refrigerator). In all cases, the tubing showed rock damage, in some cases, almost squashed flat!

In my Fiber Stream, the previous renovation used short pieces of split garden hose to protect the copper lines at the floor penetrations. I simply took this one step further, and covered the complete tubing runs in split garden hose. I ended near the gas unit, but well away from potential heating issues. I also found that if you use the cheaper garden hose, it tends to spiral when split, making it easier to cover tubing bens completely by spiraling around the tube.

Victor

[Kurt & Ann K.]

Victor,
Sounds good, but my concern would then be hidden damage since the hose would return to it's shape but the copper would not, after contact with a rock. It would seem better to extend the iron pipe to just before the floor penetration. Or at least anywhere it was felt rock damage could be an issue. Sometimes simply re-routing the copper behind a frame crossmember will also work. Some RV manufacturers are much better about protecting the gas lines than others, and they run the copper inside frame rails.

Thanks for reminding us that this is another thing to check beneath our own units.
Kurt & Ann K.

[Brian B-P]

It seems that in my Boler B1700, the transition from iron to copper is right below the floor, separately for the tube feeding each appliance - this is Kurt's suggestion, done in the original construction. My only concern would be that this means more pipe thread joints in the iron, but there's almost no pressure in this system, so I'm not really worried.

[Pete Dumbleton]

There may have been some sort of code requiring this because my '70s Jayco was also built with iron pipe outside and copper inside.

My 91S13's copper pipe is all inside the compartment except for a flexible hose from the regulator to the front wall of the egg.