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Clesse Rewriting the Lpg Vessel Regulator Rulebook

Richard Smith, technical regulators manager at Clesse (UK) Ltd, says the company has decided to rewrite the rulebook on domestic lpg vessel regulators to produce equipment tailored for the requirements of the UK market.

He said: “The brief was to design a range of lp gas tank equipment in modular form that could combine the best of Clesse’s current range and develop new, and ensure it was not only interchangeable with current equipment in the field, but also reliable and cost effective, and would embrace both two and three stage regulating pressures.”

Using his experience as an lpg gas engineer, managing director Kaz Dziamarski thought it was evident that what the lp gas industry needed was a new tank regulator.

He said: “It was evident that it had to be a ‘clean piece of paper’ approach to design – take the best of the rest and improve on it, use the best quality materials and, finally and most importantly, listen to the people who will ultimately buy and use it.”

Design work began three years ago at Clesse’s Italian Novacomet factory with initial drafts and concepts.

Kaz said: “Claudio Peli and his team revelled in the opportunity as, not only was this a new project, but it would be a major part of the new Novacomet, now specialising in bulk vessel regulation for Clesse.

“Careful consideration was taken with regard to reliability and ease of use. UPSO resets followed standard industry reset procedures to make it simple to talk the customer through any reset. The OPSO was designed to have a clear cover so an ‘armed’ indicator could be seen. The clear cap was also captive to the reset spindle, enabling easy resetting upon trip off, engaging when the seal is broken and cap is unscrewed.”

Kaz says size and configuration were also considerations – it had to be small enough to fit under the hood and big enough to give the performance required. The design route called for a nominal 10.5kg/h of lpg to be passed by the regulator with a low inlet pressure of 0.45bar, whilst maintaining a constant outlet pressure of 37mbar. In most situations, the regulator delivers 37mb pressure to cover most typical 70kW installations down to 0.2bar inlet pressure, giving stability and additional capacity.

Richard said: “Not only does this new regulator, known as the BP2203, work admirably at 37mbar, it will also perform the same at an outlet pressure of 75mbar; with the 75mbar version, UPSO is not required. This gives the choice to ‘where practicable’ provide a low-pressure intermediate solution for three stage systems.

“Trials of the BP2203 proved so successful that the regulator very quickly went into production after two seasons of trials. It’s now been over a year since full production started and reliability has been second to none. The ease of installation and use is so user friendly that it’s becoming the standard in domestic bulk lp gas regulation in the UK.”

The BP2203’s new OPSO has been fitted to all Clesse’s range of domestic and medium capacity lpg gas vessel regulators. In addition, high and low-pressure variants are available as standalone units.

Clesse UK has a range of standard lp gas regulators in a modular form that can be assembled to supply any two-stage installation up to 75kg/h of lpg using three regulators, and three stage pressure systems currently up to 25kg/h.

Richard said: “It doesn’t stop there; we stock commercial sizes from 120kg/h to 1,200kg/h so, since joining Clesse in March, I have had an extensive palette to work from and look forward to giving our customers the service and solutions they are looking for.

“Kaz’s initial brief stated that there was one other thing, based on his experience, he wanted to achieve, one limiting factor that should be considered – the capacity of our engineers’ vans! We think that, with the advent of the Clesse modular format, van stocks can be significantly reduced by holding stocks of individual regulators and kits flexible enough when correctly coupled together to supply up to 90 per cent of installations in one hit. All in all, it looks like job done!”

Contact Clesse (UK) Ltd on 01902 383233 www.clesse.co.uk

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