Did you know that your RV's propane detector has an expiration date?
These important life saving devices are super easy to replace,
and we'll show you how, so stay tuned.
A propane detector is a very important safety device
for detecting the presence of this combustible gas inside your RV.
It can find the presence of propane long before
your nose can smell that familiar "rotten egg" scent
that's thanks to a chemical that propane producers add
to this normally odorless gas.
These devices, however, do have a limited lifespan,
which is normally five to seven years following the manufacture date.
Our propane detector actually began malfunctioning ahead of its expiration date.
It started sounding an alarm about once every 24 hours,
usually while we were trying to fall asleep.
Now there are other causes that can prompt a propane detector to sound an alarm.
That includes most commonly a low battery condition in your RV.
However, also spraying aerosols or regular cleaning chemicals
in the vicinity of the propane detector can set the alarm off as well.
We explored very carefully to make absolutely certain
that we did not have a propane leak.
However, once we did so we were fairly confident
that our unit was simply malfunctioning.
Both propane and combination propane/carbon monoxide
detectors are available at a reasonable cost.
If yours detects only propane, why not replace
it with a combination detector to gain that extra margin of safety?
These detectors are available at most RV parts supply stores,
or even online from sources like Amazon.
They're also relatively inexpensive. Ours is a combination detector from RV Safe.
So let's get to work replacing our malfunctioning detector.
Like most, ours is held into the wall by two screws,
which we'll simply remove to gain access to the 12-volt wiring that brings power to the detector.
Your detector is almost assuredly located somewhere near the floor,
as propane gases are heavier than air and therefore settle in low points.
With those two screws removed, we'll remove the old detector
and pull the wiring out from inside the wall to access the existing wiring connectors.
You may see that our detector is wired into the RV's 12-volt system using cap connectors.
Polarity is important. The red wires are the positive leads,
whereas the white and black wires are negative.
We'll use some wire cutters to remove the
old cap connectors and the old detector from the power leads,
being careful to not drop the power leads back through the hole in the wall,
where they may be difficult to retrieve.
Next, we'll strip about a half inch of insulation from each wire.
If you've never used one of these automatic wire strippers before,
they're far easier to use than the plier type wire strippers.
Thanks to our viewer Kent Arnold of Nebraska for gifting us these
after watching us struggle with the plier type in some of our earlier episodes.
Now we'll just twist the bare exposed wires together
in preparation for connecting our new detector to the existing power leads.
Our detector is mounted on a circuit that also powers other devices,
which is why there are two positive leads and two negative leads.
Your detector may be connected to only one of each.
Now, because we have two of each we'll twist together the two positives, and the two negatives.
Next, we'll add the positive and negative
wires from the new detector to the corresponding power leads.
We'll crimp on new cap connectors to secure our connections.
After crimping it's always a good idea to give the wires a light tug test to ensure a good crimp.
The green light confirms that we have power to the new detector and our connections are good,
before we put everything back together.
All that's left to do is mount the new detector to the wall with the two existing screws.
These detectors have a test button,
which we'll also depress to ensure that the detector is functioning correctly.
As we have shown you, this is a very simple yet often overlooked maintenance task in your RV
for the safety of you and your family.
It may even behoove you now to go check the expiration date on your propane detector
and if it's not yet reached end of life, set yourself a calendar reminder
to change it out before it starts to fail.
That could even save you a ruined camping trip
when that alarm starts sounding in the middle of the night
when you're all trying to sleep.
We hope that you found this information useful to you.
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and answer any questions or comments you may have about your propane detector.
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