Hey everybody, finally got around to doing the leak down test. (TLDR, go to 'Present')
Background:
Calhoun Falls State Park, on our 5th night there back in Feb, I had a dream that something was making an alarm sound. Nope not a dream, the new propane leak detector was going off. Never heard it before so it took me a minute to figure what was making that noise alarm. Anyways, I opened the door to let any gas flow out. Sure enough it stopped yelling at me and I went back to sleep. (Yeah, not the dumbest thing I ever did, but close to it.) 2 hours later it went off again. This time I shut off the propane tank. It was cold outside, but the little electric heater we was doing OK, so I went back to sleep again.
Actually I had forgot about that issue, till I was reviewing my to-do list, but by then we were prepping for Myrtle Beach State Park and didn't have time to look into the issue.
So at MBSP same thing almost. We spent our week watching planes go overhead and it was great! Let the COLD waves wash over our feet and then walked to the end of the pier. On the way back traffic was horrible going out on hwy 501 AND on both sides of Columbia on I-20 / I-26 (note to self: DON'T GO THROUGH COLUMBIA AROUND 5PM!). We were had just got into Columbia when that alarm started again. Found a parking lot, opened the door, waved the gas out the door. 10 minutes later it went off again. I shut off the propane, we had the fridge running on gas while in transit, moved the ice trays from the freezer to the fridge to help it stay cool for that last 2 hours home. Yes, 3 hours, not the normal 1 hour. Two, TWO! Two Tractor trailers had broke down on I-26 in the construction zones, no way for them to pull off the road. Spicy words were spoken often.
Present:
Just built the manometer with 5/8" clear tube, a 1x4 2ft long and zip ties. (https://youtu.be/QnlfQK-8qy4) Hooked it up and did a measurement, 12" of water column, close enough for me. And it was rock solid, for a minute, then it dropped all of a sudden. I was going to bleed off a little pressure to see if the shutoff valve had a bypass leak. When I touch the stove knob, that's when it dropped. Hmm... tried it again, no drop. Went around banging on stove, fridge, furnace and water heater no more sudden dropping, till after the banging, it did again, just dropped after about a minute and then slowly went down.
So now I need to find the propane leak. After some more thinking I will probably order a sniffer off Amazon to help find where the leak is.
STRANGE how it drops all of a sudden after a minute, then slowly leaks down.
Before the drop (6" mark)
After dropping:
Edit, added this pic:
