Community Forums

sgtjoe · 10-10-2008, 07:29 AM

Anyone know the useful life of the Propane gas detector Safe Alert mdl# 40-442A. Mine is dated Oct 20 2004 and keeps going of. I replaced it in 2005. I thought the cat pan was setting it off, but this morning it went off beside the house with no propane on and no cat pan in the mh.

sgtjoe · 10-10-2008, 07:29 AM

Anyone know the useful life of the Propane gas detector Safe Alert mdl# 40-442A. Mine is dated Oct 20 2004 and keeps going of. I replaced it in 2005. I thought the cat pan was setting it off, but this morning it went off beside the house with no propane on and no cat pan in the mh.

Clay L · 10-10-2008, 07:51 AM

Mine is made by CCI Controls and started giving false alarms with no cleaning products or anything else around to cause them about three years after the manufacturing date of 2003.

I was able to keep it working okay by a combination of vacuuming it and blowing it out every so often until last month when it stared false alarming and blowing it out stopped doing any good. So it lasted about five years.
Just ordered a new one last week.

The CO detector also died last week and the new one arrived yesterday. The info that comes with it said the life of it is no more than six years. Mine only lasted about five years.

sgtjoe · 08-09-2010, 08:15 PM

Well, it hasn't even been two years and the Propane Gas detector model 40-442A is going off again. What are the rest of you seeing on life of these Deectors????? Also, anyone know an inexpensive source for buying them??

kennersonf · 08-09-2010, 08:39 PM

I know this sounds crazy, but check your house batteries. I had an alarm that kept going off. I keep my motorhome plugged into shore power and two of my 6 volt batteries had gone bad causing the water to continuously boil. It was the gases emitted from the batteries that cause the propane alarm to go off. My house batteries are outside of the motorhome in an enclosed metal compartment in front of my steps. I would have never thought the gases would make it inside. I replaced all the batteries and I've not had a problem with the propane detector since.

Gary RVRoamer · 08-14-2010, 09:38 AM

The detector companies say about 5 years of useful life, but many things can shorten that considerably. The sensor inside is very susceptible to contamination from almost any type of aerosol spray, cleaning products (which typically put a lot of chemical vapor in the air), smoke of any type, battery vapors, exposure to exhaust fumes, and even plain old dust & dirt. Since the LP detector is usually fairly close to the floor, floor cleaners and wax products are one common source of contamination.

My guess is that something you use regularly in the coach is shortening the lifespan.