No gas to stove or hot water heater

[bohrer]

New owner of 2010 Cougar 276 so problem may be simple. Second time out experienced reduced gas supply to stove although hot water heater worked. Back at home checked tanks (full), tank valve (open), changeover lever pointed left, shouldn't the indicater bar be green? It's red. Now cannot light, stove, oven or hot water heater. Suggestions?

[gkainz]

tanks verified full by weight?

yeah, indicator should still be green if there's pressure detected on the leg that it's pointing to.

A system reset, sort of, would be
1. Shut off both tanks
2. Remove
3. Verify (by weight) that the tanks are both not empty
4. Reinstall
5. Select a tank to be your primary by pointing your auto selector switch to that tank.
6. SLOWLY (IMPORTANT) turn tank valve on and verify indicator turns green.
7. SLOWLY (again) turn 2nd tank on.
8. Rotate auto selector to second tank. Verify indicator turns green.
9. Reselect 1st tank. That's your primary. When it runs out, autoselector will shift to secondary tank, and indicator with show red. At that point, select 2nd tank.
10. Shut off, remove, refill and reinstall 1st tank.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Water Heater continuing to run (burn or just make hot water?) is a mystery. If it just continued to make hot water, I assume electrical element was on? If it burned, then no idea...

[bohrer]

Thanks for the quick response. Steps 1 - 5 done. Took takes for refill and were almost full. Indicator did not turn green for either tank. Retried steps 1- - 5 SLOWLY. Indicator turned green. Started stove and briefly burned then went out. Repeated steps 1 - 5. Reread steps 6 & 7 - slowly evidently is very important. Both stove and water heater lit-up but indicator bar went half green / red. I'll check it again tomorrow but will sleep better tonight. Thanks

[Murray0512]

I had an old timer tell me that once I open tanks light stove first. Let it burn until you have a nice flame. He said that let's line purge itself then everything else should be ok . That's what I do and haven't had trouble at all. Also may have a bad indicator . I put a cheap bottle tag on each tank as a back up . Never ran off but once. I forgot to turn the durance off two weeks later oops!!

[SteveC7010]

I had an old timer tell me that once I open tanks light stove first. Let it burn until you have a nice flame. He said that let's line purge itself then everything else should be ok . That's what I do and haven't had trouble at all.

That's been standard advice for a long, long time. Once you remove a tank to have it refilled, the entire system basically looses all of its propane. When you put the fresh tank back, all of the air in the piping needs to be pushed out by propane before things will all begin to work normally once again. The fastest and easiest and SAFEST way to do this is to light up a burner or two on the stove and let them run for a couple of minutes before turning the fridge and water heater back on.

Important caveat: On some trailers, the water heater is located all the way to the rear of the trailer while the stove is in the middle. Propane tanks are almost always in the front. Lighting up the stove won't purge the air out of the lines between the stove and the rear of the trailer. Understand that it still may take several fault cycles to get the water heater running normally again.