storing calor gas canistor and stove in tent at night

[ghostmous3]

I know its a no no, the risks are far too high but where do you store them?

we are going camping for the first time ever on fri and have bought the stove and propane cylinder, given it a test run and its fine but i dont know where to store it at night when we go.

Can i put it in the car still attached to the stove overnight. I dont have one of those seperate canopy cooking things yet and i cant afford to get one before fri. Sorry if this seems a daft question but its really worrying me!

I have a 4.5kg gas cylinder and 2 ring hib with grill. I do have an extension for longer trips so I store the stove in the extension and leave it attached to the stove but do turn the cylinder off. However, the gas cylinder is NEVER inside the tent or extension. I thread the gas tube out under the edge of the extension and the gas cylinder is always outside. It just stays there and I go out and turn it on when I am going to use it. Its not a hassle - as I usually walk around and check guys etc and maybe open vents etc at the same time, daily.
When I camp without the extension I detach the stove and cylinder and keep the stove inside the tent at night but again leave the gas cylinder off and outside.
I always worry about the gas cylinder being in a car in extreme heat. No idea if there is any substance to this worry but thats my bugbear.

Thank you for replying. It looks like i will have to detach the stove and cylinder then, will i have to do the soapy water test each time i attach it?

Can the cylinder be left out in the rain?I am such a novice!

We just leave ours outside the tent, and yes, even if it rains. It'll be fine

We leave our cylinder and stove out all the time, well away from the tent. We use a wind break to try to keep it in the shade, but never bring either inside, if it rains we cook under a huge brolly. I'm not sure if you are worried about theft? If so don't be, campers are an honest lot :)

I didn't know you weren't supposed to store it in your tent even if it's all switched off. Why is that?

Ours just stays out, still attached to cooker. No one could nick it, the stove is too rattly.

There is a risk of carbon monoxide poisoning if a stove or barbecue is kept in a tent or you cook in a tent. As carbon monoxide is odourless you wouldnt know until its too late, there has been several deaths over the years

Even if the gas was turned off there is still a risk of leaks, say you had a faulty valve on the cylinder and gas escapes whilst you are sleeping, potentially fatal risk of poisoning.

Im not worried about theft just the thought of carbon monoxide poisoning scares me silly but at least i know the cylinder can be kept out in the rain and the stove too now.

We just leave it all outside.

ghost "you wouldn't know until it is too late"

I don't think you would actually know then either!

You won't CO poisoning from a switched off stove, it is a combustion product, but propane is also poisonous, although I'm sure you'd smell it. Fire is the biggest risk I'd say.

A timely link to the oft linked to you tube film about cooking in tents, narrated by Alan and his dead pan dad,

Tent fire

'They're going to have to quit the holiday aren't they?'

'Well they're going to have to buy another tent.....'

Snort..no probably not, however you might survive but your kids probably wont.

think I will just leave it all outside, seems the best solution

I have to say - we always just keep it in the tent. We don't have a sewn in ground sheet so there's plenty of ventilation. Should I be worried?!

And now that I'm on a roll - and I will probably be barred from this site for saying it, now that I've searched around a bit and have seen it's a huge no-no - we cook in the tent too. It's a big old canvas one with plenty of headroom and the kitchen shelf thing it's on has a little barrier around it. I have wondered out loud to DH in the past, is this safe, and he insists it's fine but I didn't realise there was such an argument against it. We don't let the kids use it or anything and no-one's allowed zip themselves in the bedroom etc when it's being used but I never thought of actually doing the cooking outside. Great, something else to stress about. I suppose in France we will be able to cook outside but on the windy Atlantic coast where we usually camp it'll be a different story.

PS - if you rent a tent from Keycamp or the likes, are the cookers outside? Cos that's the kind of tent we have.

last summer we went camping in norfolk and on checking in, had to sign a declaration saying we would not cook or put cooking equipment in the tent.

Don't have a massive tent (our biggest sleeps 3). In the biggest the stove is cooled outside them placed with the small gas bottle (we are talking about the kind of pocket rocket ones) in the main tent area. In the smallest it is kept in the small space between the inner and the outer. Never had an issue as the stove is always stone cold and detached from bottle (our gas bottles are self-sealing).

Just leave it outside. Perfectly safe, rain no problem. Easy as pie.