Propane leak monitors 24/7

[Minggat]

After years of owning a couple of propane fume detectors, the news I saw this week of an explosion on a boat, I finally got motivated to install one of the units.

It doesn't make sense to me that you only turn on the detector when you turn on the gas. If there's a leak, the sooner I know, the safer I am. So I wired it to monitor 24/7. Now I see that the heater in the sensor does burn out, so that idea is not so clever.

It occurred to me that a pressure switch downstream of the solenoid valve might make a better 24/7 device. Even wire in the monitor to turn on with a low pressure signal, in addition to a low pressure alarm. I have never had a leak, so any low pressure I have had in my system would be from my having venting the pressure off. Therefore pressure has always been captured between the solenoid valve and the stove. Any change in that seems like a more reliable indication than a fume detector to me.

Has anybody else done this?

[bcboomer]

Might work as long as you don't turn the solenoid off before you turn the burner off like many do.
Wouldn't it be simpler to buy a detector designed to be hard wired to the house bank?

[Minggat]

Yes. That is a given.
Already hard wired in the detector to be independent of the solenoid. The issue is the vulnerability/ finite lifespan of the sensor.

As it turns out, the pressure we are talking about is .4 psi. The lowest limits of the pressure switches I have seen so far is .5 psi.