Thread: Problem with gas freezing in Coleman Hot water shower unit.

A gas will cool as it expands (just as it heats when compresses like your compressor tank gets warm).

Is it freezing when it's operating or sitting?

Warm air holds more moisture than cold air. Moisture in the hose freezes when the gas expanding cools it to freezing. Forms ice in the expansion jet and blocks it? I assume there's no pressure regulator on the bottle.

Originally Posted by clubagreenie

A gas will cool as it expands (just as it heats when compresses like your compressor tank gets warm).

Is it freezing when it's operating or sitting?

If I remember to bleed the hose before showering on a warm evening it will sometimes be frozen, not always. Other times the unit will operate but the water will be too hot, so I turn off and on again and it won't operate.Then I bleed off the frozen gas, wait a while then reconnect.
Last night it wouldn't operate at all even after bleeding and waiting, but it worked fine this morning when the day was still cool.Just now, at 32 degrees ambient temp I turned it on and off again 5 times and it worked fine. As I wrote before, baffling!
Wagoo.
Edit, No regulator.

Is it still under warranty, if so take it back and say the product does not do what it is advertised to do and ask for your money back, Regards Frank.

you might have a contaminated batch of gas, borrow someone elses gas bottle and see if its repeatable, Preferably someone from the other side of town or from the same gas bottle you use to run your bbq at home.

I am only guessing here,but do you think the gas is condensing in the line & becoming liquid,therefore when you turn it on liquid flows into the heater & it doesn't work,until you bleed the liquid off?

Having never seen one of these,guessing again,can you have the heater & hose higher than the gas bottle,therefore any liquid will drain back into the bottle when the heater is not in use.

Thanks for the replies gents.

The unit is over 18 months old now and has been used at least 2 times a day every day, so I think warranty would be out of the question.
It has behaved like this from day one in hot weather on probably a dozen different gas cylinders (change over refills from Bunnings).
The heater unit is mounted above the gas cylinder.

It would appear from further testing that the freezing occurrs mostly late afternoon/evening when the gas in the line has cooled down after warming up during the hottest part of the day.(condensation?) Turning the valve off at the cylinder when not in use solves the problem but is inconvenient because for safety reasons the gas cylinder and heater unit is mounted outside the cabin with just the control knob poking through a hole in the flyscreen of the bathroom window.
Wagoo.

Hi,
I have seen similar problems with a gas bottle being used to heat floor covering vinyl when we were getting a floor repaired at work.
He was using heaps of gas, and the gas boiling off took all the heat out of the liquid and it froze around the neck of the bottle.
He just played the flame on the bottle, but that is not an option for you.
Can you use the heater at a lower setting and see if that starts to solve the problem?
cheers