Just been bounced into getting one of these so that SWMBO could have her birthday party outside last night!
It actually worked quite well when we eventually got it going - but the instructions are a *nightmare* - and I wonder whether others have sussed bits that I'm still struggling with.
The real problem concerns the regulator which was supplied with it - and is designed to fit one of these new-fangled green & red calor bottles of patio gas. It sort of snaps and locks on without any tools in a similar fashion to a regulator which I used to use on caravan butane bottles - except that the butane regulator had a lever to turn *and* a little release catch which had to be pressed in to remove it. That was simplicity itself. But this thing . .
There is just one knob/lever affair with only two obvious positions - vertical and horizontal. There's another bit behind it, which limits its travel, and looks as if it might move - but as far as I can see, it doesn't. The instructions say to fit it by putting the lever in the Disconnect position and then pressing the regulator firmly onto the cylinder and then turning the lever clockwise to the Off position. It's not clear which *is* the disconnect position - but since the only possible movement is clockwise by 90 degrees between the vertical and horizontal position, I figured that Disconnect must be vertical.
Something snapped into place when we did that - and it sounded hopeful, but we couldn't at first get any gas out of the thing. By trial and error, we found that the only position where gas comes out is with the lever at about
45 degrees - of which there's no mention in the instructions.The instructions also appear to indicate that the gas valve on the heater itself has to be turned anti-clockwise for max heat - whereas the opposite is true - so we spent a lot of time trying to work out why nothing was happening - not realising the valve was virtually closed! You have to press the knob on the valve in when lighting - I assume that there is a flame failure device, but this is not mentioned?!
Anyway, we're now in a position where we can turn the gas on and light it - and then turn it off again - *despite* the instructions.
What we still *can't* do is remove the regulator from the cylinder. The instructions talk about pressing it down until it clicks (it *doesn't* - it's solid!) and turning the lever to the disconnect position. I can't for the life of me see either how it locks on, even though it *does* - it doesn't seem to have enough moving parts - or how to release it. Is there anyone out there who has fought with one of these things, and won? [I can't help feeling that the instructions describe a different regulator from the one they actually supplied. For instance, it tells you to turn the gas on by pulling the tab (*what* tab?) and turning the lever clockwise into the vertical position. However, to be vertical, you have to turn it anti-clockwise - and this isn't the ON position anyway!]
HELP! If it helps to identify my regulator, it says "Enders" on the top. There's also a model number - but it's outside, and it's dark! I can find it tomorrow if required.
P.S. I suspect that I could have used a caravan propane bottle and caravan-type propane regulator (I have a spare one) rather than buying an expensive bottle of patio gas - but we doing it in a hurry, and I dared not risk it. Looking at it subsequently, the pressure looks the same at 37 mbar - but I'm not sure about the flow rate. The patio gas regulator has a max flow rate 1.5 Kg/h. The device itself apparently consumes 730g/h. My caravan regulator appears to specify its flow rate in volumetric rather than mass terms - and says 550 dm^3/hr - which I assume is 550 deci-cubic metres, or 55 cubic metres. Anyone know how these figures relate to each other?