Driving with your propane on is a decision that every RV’er with a gas / electric fridge has to make. There are not laws regarding it with the exception to propane is not allowed in some tunnels and you are supposed to turn off the open flame when fueling up.

We made the decision to keep our propane off during travel when we were still fairly new RV’ers. It was a recent issue with our stove falling out that brought to light something we hadnt through about before – Propane OFF…. there is still fuel in those lines.

The Discovery

We found our stove had fallen out of its slot. At first this was the normal frustration of another broken item to fix on a RV however we started wondering just how long that stove was bouncing around prior to its discovery. We connected up to the NVR where all of our video footage is stored and started going through the video. What we discovered as we were skimming through is that our gas knob was in the on position. We kept going through our video to see where it was turned on. The important part here is that we had no expectation of finding an open flame inside our home as it traveled down the freeway at 65mph. We had turned the propane off.

Let it Burn!

It likely wont happen again that our oven will fall out and rub on the island.. or lets hope not. However we did change our behavior and going forward we now turn off the tanks and then go back inside to burn off the additional fuel. We know that some people make the decision to run the propane when driving to keep their fridge cool – and that is a personal choice. For us we prefer not to have the open flame and the fuel source running to it during transit. RVs shake and rattle as we drive down the road in turn moving those appliances. It seems easy that wiring or propane connections could easily become disconnected and killing the propane is just one less item to worry about.

Changing your practice

Do you travel with your propane tanks open or closed? Its a personal choice but either way maybe our experience will add something to your travel day checklist.