The family whose gas hob exploded in an incident they claim was due to a faulty cylinder will carry on with legal action despite Enemalta and Liquigas Limited placing the blame on the gas regulator mechanism.

The case came to light after George and Marcelle Montanaro filed a judicial protest on Tuesday claiming that their gas hob had exploded out of the mounting due to a faulty gas cylinder the Thursday before.

They made the claim after a Liquigas Ltd employee had visited their home and, according to them, said the cylinder was over pressurised and, as a result, the hob exploded. The same employee, they added, also told them the cylinders were meant to be pressurised at three bars while theirs was at six bars.

The couple filed the protest against the chairmen of Enemalta Corporation, Liquigas Ltd, the Health and Safety Authority and the Malta Resources Authority.

Following an internal investigation on the cylinders and the equipment, Enemalta said the two gas regulators were to blame because they were seriously damaged.

It said that "regulators normally need replacement after five years. Both regulators used were 12 years old, reducing their potential to withstand pressure from 20 to six bars".

Enemalta said that, when tested, "the release from the cylinders was always in vapour form, clearly indicating that the cylinder was not overfilled. Should the cylinder have been overfilled, liquefied petroleum gas LPG would have been released in liquid form".

It said "gas cylinders are designed to withstand pressure of up to 65 bars and this particular cylinder was measured at six bars. Moreover, cylinders are filled by weight and not pressure, which is always constant and dependent only on temperature".

Liquigas, a company which has now taken over the distribution and marketing of LPG gas from Enemalta, said the cylinder in question was fully tested and certified abroad according to EU regulations as part of an ongoing exercise initiated by the company last year.

The company said Mr Montanaro had first used a faulty regulator which was leaking gas on the roof into the air and when he realised it was defective he changed it by another which he thought was not defective. The incident happened when the second regulator was installed, the company said.

"The pressure located in the two cylinders at Mr Montanaro's house was not problematic. It was very usual for cylinder pressure to go up to five or six bars due to solar heat and cylinders were produced to withstand a pressure of 65 bars".

In view of this, the company said, "the most feasible explanation was that a volume of gas passed through the first defective regulator, forced its way through the cooker valve and accumulated under the hob and then caused the incident."

"In such case, the cooker valve could either return to normal or suffer permanent damage. The use of a second regulator by Mr Montanaro could not have resolved the situation already created with the cooker valve", a spokesman for Liquigas Ltd said.

When contacted Mr Montanaro said that, despite the explanation given, he will still seek damages through the court.