Butane Gas cylinder - 30min fire resistant housing

I wonder if anyone can clarify what exactly is wanted and suggest how I can quickly and cheaply turn a hand built kitchen cupboard into "30 minutes fire resistant". The cupboard houses a 15kg butane cylinder that feeds our range cooker and it needs a new seal, cooling motor and one or two burners but the manufacturer refuse to refurbish it under a special offer fixed fee unless we bring the Butane installation up to present standards.

According to what I have gleaned from current regs the housing for a butane cylinder in the home has to be 30 minutes fire resistant. It's what constitutes "30 min fire resistant" and how to make it so it is that is baffling. The present installation approved by a Corgi in 2000 has a 50 cm cupboard separating the cylinder cupboard from the cooker. Our neighbour also has a separator cupboard in her hand built kitchen which was approved by a different corgi so I presume it was the standard at the time.

I wonder if the 50 cm cupboard between bottle and cooker can be considered a "cavity barrier"? The kitchen is hand built from one inch hardwood ply and oak, but the nearest wall to the cooker and the top of the cupboard housing the cylinder is double layered, i.e. two inch ply, which is more than the 38mm for fire safety regulations to deem a door as "30 min fire resistant".

Finally the regs do not state whether the "fire resistance" is for fire entering the the housing or the other way round? (I presume to prevent it from entering the housing because any 30 minute "fire resistant" would be blown apart if the fire started inside with the cylinder so what use would 30 mins resistance be?)

Any help much appreciated.

Convert to PROPANE and relocate the Cylinder/s to OUTSIDE!!

Thanks for reply Boilerman2. How easy it is to recommend "change to Propane".

Unfortunately I am unable to convert to Propane because the costs are absolutely prohibitive. I would need to raise several thousand pounds which is just not going to happen.

According to the media and the rest I am one of those so called "benefit scroungers". I am unfortunate, or fortunate depending how you look at it, to have two absolutely wonderful, loving, affectionate, sons in their late thirties with severely learning disabilities. I am unable to work since my ex and their mother left us 10 years ago for another as after that I became our sons sole carer. Social Care does f*** a** apart from awarding one son a few days a week at a day centre and very occasional respite for me. (We are at present with lawyers suing the Council for a "failure of duty of care" but now the government are cutting Legal Aid god knows what will become of that!)

I wish I could change to Propane, or even better NG. I could run both heating and cooker from it and save a bit of our very precious funds, but the installation is extremely complex I'm told as I already have a large oil storage tank exactly where I could supposedly site propane bottles but as we got a grant last year with Warm Front to fit a new oil fired boiler and storage tank we wouldn't get any grant to cost the changeover to propane even though it could serve both boiler and cooker!

All I want to know is how to create an accepted 30 min fire resistant housing but it is so easy to recommend something easier when you don't know the persons circumstances.

(PLEASE NOTE FROM ID WENDIFF I HAVE "LOANED" MY DIYNOT ID FOR THIS QUESTION TO A FRIEND AS HE, FATHER CARER OF TWO SEVERELY LEARNING DISABLED ADULT SONS, HAS NO COMPUTER NOR CAN HE USE INTERNET AND ALTHOUGH I OPENNED A DIYNOT ACCOUNT FOR HIM TO ASK THIS QUESTION MY COMPUTER REVERTS TO MY ID AUTOMATICALLY).

wendiff said:

Unfortunately I am unable to convert to Propane because the costs are absolutely prohibitive. I would need to raise several thousand pounds

Click to expand...

Thousands of pounds for what exactly?

Propane is available in small cylinders just like your butane one.
Unlike butane, the cylinder(s) can be located outside in freezing temperatures and still work perfectly.
Being outside, you don't need to bother with fire resistant cupboards / walls / partitions and whatever.
You can also use the cupboard for something else.

Dear OP - What's with your attitude???
you asked for advice and I gave the BEST ADVICE avialible which has been backed up by another respondent

Propane is cheaper and more reliable than Butane
and having it located outside is far safer for you and your neghbours

as for your personal circumstances?? with your attitude I could not give a Flying f**k!

i was under the idea that a registered gas engineer could carry out repair to an appliance/installation that does not meet current standards as long as the said gas engineer left a warning notice duly signed by the occupier/responsible person.which states that this appliance/installation is unsafe and turned off.
must not be used until all safety situations are upgraded.
butane gas could be different but it makes a bigger bang if treated with less respect.

patsmotors said:

i was under the idea that a registered gas engineer could carry out repair to an appliance/installation that does not meet current standards as long as the said gas engineer left a warning notice duly signed by the occupier/responsible person.which states that this appliance/installation is unsafe and turned off.
must not be used until all safety situations are upgraded.

Click to expand...

Your idea is wrong. That is not the case.

Gasop said:

patsmotors said:

i was under the idea that a registered gas engineer could carry out repair to an appliance/installation that does not meet current standards as long as the said gas engineer left a warning notice duly signed by the occupier/responsible person.which states that this appliance/installation is unsafe and turned off.
must not be used until all safety situations are upgraded.

Click to expand...

Your idea is wrong. That is not the case.

Click to expand...

In what way is it wrong ?

You can repair n/c/s appliances and leave a note, the only thing I can see wrong with the statement is turning it off, for n/c/s you don't have to leave it turned off, only when it's ar.

If you walked away fro n/c/s installations then no cooker company would get any work done as it seems that rgi's find it impossible to fit a cooker correctly.

In reply to Boilerman2, I think the "attitude" is yours not mine and if my reply was a bit sarcastic I don't believe it was rude.

I asked for advice on how to make a cupboard housing the cylinder 30 minute fire resistant not what gas to use. Fortunately CALOR have been able to give me "the best available advice" (at least in my view) to my question, i.e. line the cupboard with 30 min fire rated MDF, (£20 for an 8x6 sheet) which is what I am going to do.

Even if you are correct and Propane is better, safer, and cheaper; even if the conversion would only cost £500 or £1000 (probably a new cooker, listed building consent, construction of Suffolk red brick housing to hide it from view, and many meters of copper tubing all around the outside (or underground) fitted by a GasSafe engineer who are not exactly cheap) and not the thousands I mistakenly calculated when I thought your advice was to install a huge cylinder, I asked advice on a specific action and your advice was for something completely different.

I did not mean to offend you with my first reply, nor with this one for that matter, but even if I did, for which I apologise, I don't think it merited your reply by a long shot.

Thanks wsts.

From what we were told a few weeks ago by CALOR and GS you are correct but in our case the cooker manufacturer is either trying to save face, trying to keep the upfront fee we paid (non-refundable if the cooker is beyond repair) and/or trying to force us to have to buy a new cooker hopefully from them!

The manufacturer's engineer has made three brief visits to do the repair and each time he has promptly left using a different excuse for not being able to do it.

On his first visit he said it was too old (12 years) to get parts; a day later we had found all the original manufacturer's parts on e-spares!

With that excuse countered, on his second visit he said the hob top screws had corroded and he couldn't unscrew them, nor could he drill them out as it would damage the top for which there was no replacement; that night I left the screws soaked with WD40 and the next day I unscrewed them all with no damage at all.

His third visit was even dramatic. After telling us there was a serious problem and after half an hour conversing on the phone from inside his van he returned to inform us that our installation was illegal, that we were committing a criminal offence, and that Gas Safe had told him he had to "close it down". He then proceeded to stick a warning notice on the cooker for "immediate danger" on which he had written as the reason, "Gas in house and incorrect", and left carrying our Butane cylinder which he only set down over 10 meters away from the house!

Worried we were committing an offence we immediately telephoned GasSafe but it quickly transpired that the engineer had somehow confused the blue butane bottle for an orange Propane one (not allowed in the house), and our butane cooker for a propane one !!!

Not surprisingly we are making a complaint to GasSafe about him and the manufacturer have at least half apologised and agreed send a different engineer, but they insist we bring the installation up to current standards before they will do the work (most likely to save face after such a gaffe by their engineer) and if we don't we will have to forfeit the fee paid which leaves us with me lining the cupboard next weekend and paying a GS engineer to sign it off just so they can't rake up any other excuse and we can get the cooker repaired once and for all.

I don't see any mention of ventilation re- your cupboard, is there any ?

[quote="Boilerman2"

Propane is cheaper and more reliable than Butane
[/quote]

So how's it more reliable ? the cylinders indoors so the gas will still vaporise.

Whats the make model and fault with your cooker ?

Boilerman2 said:

Dear OP - What's with your attitude???
you asked for advice and I gave the BEST ADVICE avialible which has been backed up by another respondent

Propane is cheaper and more reliable than Butane
and having it located outside is far safer for you and your neghbours

as for your personal circumstances?? with your attitude I could not give a Flying f**k!

Click to expand...

Only attitude on this post is yours take a bl33din chill pill.

gasbanni wrote:

"Whats the make model and fault with your cooker ?"

Thanks gasbanni. It is a stoves stainless steel 900 (single oven) from 2000. It works fine but needs a new seal, a fan (the engineer thought it was most likely the cooling one but whichever it is it still works but makes a noise so probably about to go), two burners or at least the ceramic ignitions, and a button top.

It's been a fantastic cooker and we hope it will last at least until we re-arrange the kitchen, this year or next, when I would be able to adapt the hand built cabinet to fit if it gave up and we got a smaller one.