LP Gas is safe when it is handled properly, and the handling is not complicated. Here is the leak check, what to do if you smell gas, and how to keep a cylinder in good order.
LP Gas has no natural smell. The sharp rotten-egg odour is added deliberately so that a leak announces itself. If you can smell it, treat it as real. If you are still choosing a cylinder, see the guide to the sizes first.
Do not light a match or a lighter, and do not touch a light switch, a plug or an extractor fan. A switch makes a small spark as it moves, and that is enough. Leave anything that is already on exactly as it is. Get everyone out of the room, and out of the building if the smell is strong.
If you can get to the cylinder without walking into the smell, turn the valve on top clockwise until it stops. That cuts the gas at the source, which matters more than closing the knob on the appliance. If the smell is strong, or the cylinder is hot, or you would have to feel your way to it, leave it and get out instead.
Open the doors and windows. LP Gas is heavier than air, so it settles low and collects in floor-level spaces — under counters, in a pit, down a drain. Moving air is what clears it.
If the valve is closed and the smell has cleared, carry the cylinder outdoors and stand it upright in the open, away from drains and doorways. Then find the leak before you reconnect anything.
If the smell will not clear, if you cannot reach the valve, or if gas is still escaping, do not go back in. Call the fire brigade on 10177, or 112 from a mobile, from outside the building. Once everyone is safe, call us and we will replace the cylinder and check the fittings.
Two minutes, no tools, and it is the same test a professional uses. Do it every time you connect a fresh cylinder.
A squirt of dishwashing liquid in a cup of water, stirred until it is properly soapy. That is the whole apparatus.
With the cylinder valve open but the appliance off, brush or wipe the mixture over the valve, the regulator, and both ends of the hose where it clamps on. Those joints are where leaks happen; the steel bottle itself almost never leaks.
Escaping gas blows the soap film into a cluster of small bubbles that keeps growing. A few bubbles that appear once and stop are just air you introduced. Bubbles that keep forming are a leak.
People still check for leaks with a lighter. It works, in the sense that you will certainly find the leak. Use soap.
Store cylinders standing up, outdoors or somewhere genuinely ventilated, out of direct sun and away from heat. Upright matters: the safety valve is designed to vent gas, and lying down it can vent liquid instead. Keep them away from drains, because gas that escapes will run down one and sit there.
The rubber hose is the part that ages, and most of that ageing happens inside where you cannot see it. Hoses carry a moulded date stamp: check it, and replace the hose at the interval it is marked for even if it still looks fine. Then replace it sooner than that if you see cracks, stiffness, perishing near the clamps, or a section gone shiny and hard. On the coast, salt air attacks hoses and regulator fittings noticeably faster than inland, so bring the change forward. A hose costs very little next to what it protects.
A regulator that is failing does not announce itself — the flame just gets lazy, yellow-tipped or uneven. If a cylinder you know is full is burning badly, suspect the regulator before you blame the gas. Bring it in and we will check it.
Burning gas consumes oxygen and produces carbon monoxide when it burns badly, and both happen silently while you sleep. Never use a gas heater in a bedroom or a bathroom, and never leave one running overnight. An open window is not enough — a heater needs a properly ventilated living area, not a gap in a frame. A carbon monoxide alarm costs less than a cylinder of gas and is worth having wherever you burn gas indoors.
A weak flame is not always an empty cylinder, and swapping it out when the fault is elsewhere just wastes a trip.
Every cylinder is stamped with its empty weight, the tare. Put it on a bathroom scale, subtract the tare from what the scale reads, and what remains is the gas still inside. It is the only method that actually tells you.
Wipe a wet cloth down the side of the cylinder. The section still holding liquid gas stays cool and dries more slowly, so a faint line appears at the level. Rough, but it costs nothing and takes ten seconds.
A yellow or lifting flame on a cylinder you know has gas in it usually means a blocked burner, a tired regulator or a kinked hose — not empty gas. Clean the burner ports first, then suspect the regulator.
A cylinder going very cold and frosting near the base during heavy use is normal physics, not a fault. Liquid gas absorbs heat as it boils off. A smaller cylinder under a big burner will do it sooner.
Every cylinder is inspected before it goes back out, and we work to South African SANS standards for filling and handling. A bottle with a damaged valve, a bad foot ring or serious corrosion does not get refilled.
The person who brings your cylinder knows how to carry, stand and connect it, and will check the connection with you rather than leaving it at the gate.