Call for gas ventilation rules change

Victorian-manufactured caravans and hybrids have been at a disadvantage to those built interstate due to their home-state’s more rigorous gas-venting regulations.

The ability to keep dust out of these serious off-road RVs is a significant sales advantage, but the Victorian regulations demand permanent ventilation, even in ‘travel’ mode. However this requirement doesn’t apply in all Australian states where RVs are manufactured and to many imports.

The ability to keep dust out of these RVs is a significant customer requirement, but the Victorian gas regulations demand permanent ventilation, even while the RV is in travel mode.

This disparity could soon be coming to an end, with Melbourne-based off-road camper manufacturer Track asking Energy Safe Victoria to approve a similar arrangement for local manufacturers to achieve national consistency and competitiveness.

Track, which builds the legendary Tvan campers and larger T4 hybrids and purchased the well-known Trakmaster and Pioneer brands in early-2020, has argued that levelling the regulatory playing field starts with recognition that RV manufacturing is a national industry and hence should be regulated nationally, with the easiest option being to have the Commonwealth include all the relevant parts of Plumbing, Gas and Electrical standards in its RVSA type approval process.

As manufacturers are required to produce and have approved compliant designs and are then subject to audit — which carries significant penalties for failure and provides for national recall of defective product –  this would be an effective measure.

Track says the lack of national consistency is costing it business.

At present, leading Queensland off-road specialists such as Australian Off-Road and Bushtracker, have been able to get around the ventilation issue by installing drop-down, or fold away panels that seal the lower door gas vents under the guise of improving their wading depth when crossing rivers. This has been signed off by Queensland regulators, but only applies to off-road manufacturers based in that state.

Some dedicated off-road manufacturers like Melbourne-based Trakmaster installed rooftop ‘scupper vents’ that when opened on unsealed roads pressurise the van’s interior to stop dust entry, while other off-road specialists like Kimberley and Van Cruiser got around the dust problem by installing more sophisticated rooftop blower systems.

Dometic, meanwhile, has launched its aftermarket DRS (Dust Reduction System) that is designed to do a similar job without power.

However, all these measures may be historic if the current move away from gas cooking and heating to all-electric caravans continues, meaning that with no internal gas-powered items, will make venting unnecessary...

For example, interstate rivals Bushtracker and AOR with their ‘wading’ panels that block off the lower entry door vents are flouting the rules according to Track, but the Queensland-based manufacturers get around this because these things are signed off by the local state gas authorities.