Propane System

Consists of

• propane tank (regular barbecue tank) 
• propane burner (see Kitchen section)
• water heater (see Water System section)
• furnace (Suburban NT16SEQ, Ebay)
• copper pipes and fittings (Home Depot)  

That was one of the biggest dilemma: where to put the propane tank. I wanted it to be outside under the van, however reasonable in volume tanks that I could find were very expensive and either required additionally expensive remote filling system or would be hanging too low. It looks to me that Promaster belly configuration is not very good for placing a propane tank underneath. Mercedes vans seems much better for this. Thus I finally decided to put a regular barbecue tank inside: cheap and easy to exchange without looking for filling stations.   

For that purpose, I made a relatively tight plywood box between the driver side wheel well and rear door. The box came up with quite complicated configuration, as I wanted it to fit under the bed frame. The box has two openings: large plywood door for tank replacement, and round opening with threaded plastic cap on top to have an easy quick access to tank valve, which is a quite frequent operation, as it is strongly recommended to shut off the propane when driving. At the bottom of the tank box I made a hole and glued a 90 deg elbow just in case for propane self evacuation in case of a leak. I tried to make the box air tight and put a rubber gasket around the door.

.

...

 For piping, I used 3/8 OD copper tube and flair fittings from Home Depot. I ran the pipe first to the water heater on the driver side, then across the van to the hob and furnace. Details are on the pictures.

Connections to both heaters are copper flair. The hob has nonstandard very small diameter pipe, which does not fit any standard fitting, so I had to use the reinforced rubber tube from auto store.