Why you should not place your gas cylinder inside water

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• Author: Muyiwa Ige(LPG Stakeholder and Consultant)

The practice of dipping cooking gas cylinder inside water to conserve the gas in it is widespread in Nigeria and continues to gain ground.

This is probably because the people who have experimented with the practice have found it to be effective and are spreading the word.

But what the promoters of this practice fail to realize is that, what dipping the gas cylinder inside water does is to reduce the rate of evaporation of the liquid gas, which minimizes the volume of the gas vapor being produced and delivered to the gas burner for combustion.

In a nutshell, what you achieve by dipping your gas cylinder inside water is to reduce the quantity of calories (heat) that will be produced at your gas burner and extend the duration of your cooking.

For example, a cylinder that is not placed inside water will expend 0.25kg of gas to cook jollof-rice for 30 minutes, while the same cylinder placed inside  water will expend the same 0.25kg of gas to cook the same meal of delicious jollof-rice for 45-55 minutes.

So in essence, you just end up prolonging your cooking time by dipping your cylinder inside water.

Major Disadvantage of Placing your Cylinder inside water

By placing your cylinder inside water, you expose its surfaces that are not fully covered with paint to corrosion.

Rust, which occurs when water comes in contact with the iron in the steel surface of your gas cylinder will weaken your cylinder and can make it crack/fail over time.

Constantly placing your gas cylinder (that may not even be of good quality in the first place and may not be fully covered with superior quality paint) inside water makes the bottom of your cylinder vulnerable to corrosion.

This rust (corrosion) will quickly propagate along the welded parts at the base of your cylinder, leading to its failure within a short period of time.