Propane explosion below cooktop

[rbryan4]

An injured party, who sought redress, and received none. This injured party knows of other injured parties, who had similar incidents with the same stove. Sounds to me like all the elements for attempting a class action are in place. Many suits have started with far less.

Have to say though, if it comes to a suit, that's a shame. This whole thing could have been easily handled by ETI before it came to that.

[sofmerc]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

Meaningless what his affiliations are or experience with other trailers/stoves. All that matters is that this poor man was burned with a fireball in his trailer! One should be able to buy a trailer with an expectation that there isn't going to be an explosion. There is no justification for this and the inaction of the parties involved.

Jim you should be thankful that as many owners have complained to ETI as they have. Your new trailer will have a different (hopefully safer) cooktop as a result. Now Escape just needs to recall all the existing SDS2 cooktops that are out there because even if you don't care about those owners and their families I do.

Kind of being a little over dramatic huh? I hardly think any of CPAHarleys comments as " even if you don't care about those owners and their families I do." not caring.... He may differ with how to go about it but I assure you he cares.

[cpaharley2008]

Thanks for the support there, Jack!

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by sofmerc

Kind of being a little over dramatic huh? I hardly think any of CPAHarleys comments as " even if you don't care about those owners and their families I do." not caring.... He may differ with how to go about it but I assure you he cares.

Maybe its just my interpretation of the written word. I haven't seen any empathy to those that have been injured or any offering of sound advice on how to deal with the situation. If he's so connected at Escape that he can get the delivery date he wants on a new trailer then maybe he can call and speak to Karl about this cooktop debacle and let us know what he learns.

[Telescopist]

Originally Posted by rbryan4

An injured party, who sought redress, and received none. This injured party knows of other injured parties, who had similar incidents with the same stove. Sounds to me like all the elements for attempting a class action are in place. Many suits have started with far less.

Have to say though, if it comes to a suit, that's a shame. This whole thing could have been easily handled by ETI before it came to that.

The 'handling part' usually goes out the window once someone gets injured. ETI has blown it.

The retaining nuts on my stove are loose too. I couldn't avoid destroying the 'beauty ring' (weird name) in the process of checking the nuts. I picked up a couple of internal star washers. I have some blue Loctite.

I performed a careful inspection of the propane tubes. I was not able to observe any damage to the flanges. I might have caught the problem before the nuts got really loose.

The real test involved using my portable Propane/Natural Gas Leak Detector. I've used one for years because all my apartments have gas stoves and the basements have gas hot water heaters. This one someone in this thread mentioned looks good. Check out the video.

I performed a 'before' and 'after' test. The detector didn't squawk either way.

[YakRV]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

Maybe its just my interpretation of the written word. I haven't seen any empathy to those that have been injured or any offering of sound advice on how to deal with the situation. If he's so connected at Escape that he can get the delivery date he wants on a new trailer then maybe he can call and speak to Karl about this cooktop debacle and let us know what he learns.

C’mon, now, there’s no reason to attack anyone on this board (well, mostly haha), especially one as esteemed as Mr. cpaharley2008. Your beef is with Suburban and Escape. I’m quite sure he simply missed the report of floridacracker’s mishap from about 50 posts ago.

[Rossue]

Personally I appreciate and share Dave's (rubicon) outrage. And I have to wonder about those who with the knowledge of a probable design flaw would even consider using the stove- loctite or not. Suburban & ETI's lawyers would probably say you caused the problem attempting a fix.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by YakRV

C’mon, now, there’s no reason to attack anyone on this board (well, mostly haha), especially one as esteemed as Mr. cpaharley2008. Your beef is with Suburban and Escape. I’m quite sure he simply missed the report of floridacracker’s mishap from about 50 posts ago.

My beef is also with people who post useless information in a protective posture of ETI when they are clearly mishandling a serious situation. If he forgot about Tony’s explosion I reminded him several times in my recent posts.

[YakRV]

Originally Posted by Rossue

Personally I appreciate and share Dave's (rubicon) outrage. And I have to wonder about those who with the knowledge of a probable design flaw would even consider using the stove- loctite or not. Suburban & ETI's lawyers would probably say you caused the problem attempting a fix.

The heightened concern re: exploding Suburban gas cooktops is obviously warranted. I haven’t seen anyone on this board say otherwise. I can’t imagine the horror of having a cooktop turn into a fireball.

I personally have never lived in any dwelling with a gas stove. Ever. I’m following other alternatives closely for our Escape. Very interested in how feasible the induction cooktops might be for us.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Bobbie54

Some Forest River models have had them. (Only thing I've seen on a search.) And searches could be for keywords like two-burner and glass cover.

I agree, but there are a lot of two-burner stoves with glass covers. It would be tough sorting them out.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by cpaharley2008

What I was trying to say, is does 3 posts qualify one to form an opinion on a subject, let alone file a lawsuit......perhaps someone who has owned several other trailers and has had various experiences with other stoves.......

Given that this thread alone is at 291 posts, and a person does not even need to be a member of the forum to read them and other threads (and Facebook posts, and discussions in other forums, etc), I don't think that a member's count of only three (or whatever it is now) posts is relevant to the knowledge held by that member.

While I don't like seeing issues go unnecessarily to litigation, starting the preparation of a class action with one person and then finding the other members of the class - knowing that a significant number exist - is normal.

[Bobbie54]

Originally Posted by Rossue

Personally I appreciate and share Dave's (rubicon) outrage. And I have to wonder about those who with the knowledge of a probable design flaw would even consider using the stove- loctite or not. Suburban & ETI's lawyers would probably say you caused the problem attempting a fix.

I agree; I don't think it is safe fixed unless you can correct the original design flaw with upgraded tubes.

[Perry Butler]

Originally Posted by Bobbie54

I agree; I don't think it is safe fixed unless you can correct the original design flaw with upgraded tubes.

The problem is NOT the tubes. The problem is nuts that loosen and cause the tubes to shear. IOW's sheared tubes are the result of ever loosening nuts.

Enjoy,

Perry

[yangstyle]

Originally Posted by Bobbie54

I hadn't even been on a dirt road with mine and one of the connections was broken, I suspect even just overzealous tightening would break those flanges. Add to that the heat shield falling off (and apparently being deliberately bent to fit the space, which also worries me).

I am not sure that the heat shield has anything to do with the gas flanges breaking?

[Bobbie54]

Originally Posted by Perryb67

The problem is NOT the tubes. The problem is nuts that loosen and cause the tubes to shear. IOW's sheared tubes are the result of ever loosening nuts.

Enjoy,

Perry

Maybe. But I don't know how you can know that. What causes the nuts to loosen?

[Bobbie54]

Originally Posted by yangstyle

I am not sure that the heat shield has anything to do with the gas flanges breaking?

I don't think it does. I think it is an additional problem. The screws that attach it to the stove are too short and easily work loose. If you need a heat shield and it is gone, what happens?

It slid out of the way- half the stove bottom was not covered by the heat shield.

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by Rossue

Suburban & ETI's lawyers would probably say you caused the problem attempting a fix.

It’s promising that when the NHTSA studied the Dometic stove issues it didn’t matter that they concluded the problem became exacerbated after user intervention in many cases. There was a problem either way and I think it would be deemed reasonable that a user is going to try what they can to stop a gas leak in their trailer.
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/202...0E071-5848.pdf

[oldwave]

Originally Posted by YakRV

The heightened concern re: exploding Suburban gas cooktops is obviously warranted. I haven’t seen anyone on this board say otherwise. I can’t imagine the horror of having a cooktop turn into a fireball.

I personally have never lived in any dwelling with a gas stove. Ever. I’m following other alternatives closely for our Escape. Very interested in how feasible the induction cooktops might be for us.

We do a lot of shore power, the induction cooktop I’m using works great, I put it on the top of existing cooktop. Outside I cook with butane. I am installing an 1800 watt progressive dynamics inverter/transfer switch. I’ll report back if the cooktop works with it, and as I’m installing a victron smart shunt I should get a good measure of the drawn wattage from the dual 6 volts. I don’t like propane in an enclosed space, that said I’ve used the older Atwood 2 burner with no issues some over the last 4 years

[YakRV]

Originally Posted by oldwave

We do a lot of shore power, the induction cooktop I’m using works great, I put it on the top of existing cooktop. Outside I cook with butane. I am installing an 1800 watt progressive dynamics inverter/transfer switch. I’ll report back if the cooktop works with it, and as I’m installing a victron smart shunt I should get a good measure of the drawn wattage from the dual 6 volts. I don’t like propane in an enclosed space, that said I’ve used the older Atwood 2 burner with no issues some over the last 4 years

Thank you very much, oldwave. We appreciate the help.

[Perry Butler]

Originally Posted by Bobbie54

Maybe. But I don't know how you can know that. What causes the nuts to loosen?

t's quite simple. Vibration. Your camper is like a rolling volcano going down the road. There are no lock washers or Loctite to stop the nuts from loosening, so they loosen, causing the pipe to vibrate at the burner, and eventually the pipe shears.

Enjoy,

Perry