Fors and against Standard Calor gas or refillable Gas whats more Viable re cost!

[Minisorella]

I love my refillables! They're a bit over 6 years old now and and cost over £650 to install (including a BBQ point) with an external fill but I don't begrudge a penny. I never have to lug heavy bottles in and out of the van, don't have to wait for an empty before exchanging and, thanks to the adapters that came with the kit, I had no problem refilling in Europe. I've got 3 fill stations near me and always seem to be able to find somewhere on my travels.

As for how long it would take to recoup the cost, it depends on how often you change bottles of course.
I know gas prices vary a lot from place to place and over time but in my area, it currently costs me about £7 to fill 1 x 6kg bottle, whereas it would be between £23 and £25 to exchange it. That's saving me £16 to £18 per bottle per fill. Therefore, I probably broke even at between 36 and 40 bottles. I reckon my system has paid for itself at least twice over, if not three times.

I would never have gone for direct fill bottles because I can't bear being told off and would have shed tears in garage forecourts :sad:

 

[2cv]

A good site which is generally up to date is FillLPG.co.uk - Your LPG Filling station map

 

[vwalan]

Seems to me to be the main reason why swapping Spanish Portugese and French bottles is liked.
I understand but still would go for refillable.
If you are willing to do it I have read some partially refill via a BBQ point.
It also seems lpg in Bottles is cheap in Spain Portugal Morocco and France.
I would quite like to go to Morocco and with 2 full tanks and a bit of care We could last for 6 weeks.
So I still go for re-fillable but appreciate the opposite views.

many go forthe full 90 days entry visa . specialy in winter. you may have trouble filling your bottles . they do fill uk /eu bottles in the gas plants but rip you off . it was about 3quid for a 12kg bottle exchange last time i was there but as the pound fell bet its more like 4.50 to a 5er now.
mind it was cheap swapping camping gas . about a quid for a 907 . bet thats 1,50 now.
used to take camping gas just to get them filled easy and cheap. my lad uses them in his vw camper. mind handy if you need an emergency back up.
its a shame so many motor homes only have small gas lockers .

 

[Caz]

whilst I am fit and able to lift calor bottles in and out of my M/home I will continue to buy calor.

Yes its more expensive but for my useage (and I use my m/home 4 or 5 months of the year) it would take years to recoup the cost of purchasing/installing refillables.

Calor is available everywhere - most petrol stations, country shops even builder's merchants sell it, draught gas is getting increasingly harder to find and will continue to become harder to find (when was the last time you saw a LPG powered car?)

It is all but unavailable in Scotland above the great glen (I think one place on Skye and another on the northern A9)

Yes gas on draught is very convenient (assuming that you have a source) and is undoubtably cheaper (if you can find it) but I prefer the ubiquity of the big red bottle!

Never had a problem finding LPG, there are three places within 2 miles of my house! Most farmer's in Shropshire use it and a few even sell it!

Regards,
Del

Not up this end of Shropshire. I have one garage 4 miles away, the next nearest are all 18 - 20 miles away.

I agree with Malagoeth - (except to say the last time I saw an LPG powered car was when I closed my curtains about half an hour ago . Love my car but planning LPG re-fuelling often means I have to go out of my way or run on petrol for a while.

If I bought a van with a refillable system then I would suck it and see - but I wouldn't get a system retro-fitted. It would take a few years to feel the financial benefit, and by then it would probably be even harder to get hold of "loose" LPG in the UK. Anyway, LPG is much cheaper abroad even in bottles so not as much saving there as in UK.

 

[witzend]

Whats the life of refillables is it 10 yrs before having to replace them?

 

[roamingman]

We had a Discovery that ran on LPG, we had 3 places near us where we could fill up. That was in Aberdeenshire.

 

[malagaoth]

we had 3 places near us where we could fill up. That was in Aberdeenshire

two points I notice that you write in the past tense, is the situation the same currently?

three places close to one of the largest cities in Scotland....I live in rural Ireland and there are at least three places I could exchange a bottle close enough for me to carry it home!

But the point is NOT how easy a refil is to get when you are at home its how easy it is to get when you need it!

If you are in the north of Scotland (above the Great Glen) better make sure that you dont run out because a refil might be a very long way away

 

[Nabsim]

My take on this, I am a low gas user, one 6kg bottle does us 39 days of use so no way was I going to get refillable at what they cost.

More I thought about it though, a 6kg bottle costs me £24 each time to fill it and I (or Caz) have to get it moved and swapped. We are away 4 nights every 7 and will be for the rest of this year. Next year I will be in it a LOT more.

I decided to get one 11kg bottle fitted and have a manual changeover point so I can fit a Calor or continental bottle as an emergency, it is also going to be dead easy to fit a second refillable. In the New Year at some point I am wanting to full time so those 39 days will be consecutive. With my small gas usage I will pay for my system in 18 months probably.

Don’t forget if you change vans you can take everything off except the fill point and either put on a new van or sell it, folks are always looking for second hand bottles. Oh yes, I didn’t consider lose refillable bottles as I have mobility problems and that would be more lugging and lifting.

Have a word with Charlie, mine was fitted quickly at a meet last weekend

Edit: forgot to add, there is no problem if you can’t refill for a time. Gaslow sell a pipe you connect to your external fill point then attach a Calor (or other make) bottle to it. I could have used that as my emergency option

 

[Minisorella]

I had no idea they had a limited life span! :sad: Thanks for the info though Charlie.

 

[malagaoth]

Gaslow sell a pipe you connect to your external fill point then attach a Calor (or other make) bottle to it.

Not exactly convenient though, what do you do with the bottle when its not connected to the external filler, does it roll about the floor like an incendary wrecking ball?

My major irk is the price of smaller gas bottles, I have room in the locker for 2 x 13kg calor bottles in order to save weight I prefer to carry 1 x 13kg (for use) and 1 x 3.9kg (for emergency - like when you run out when the shops have closed).

A 13kg is currently about £31 - I use about two per year
the 3.9kg costs £17 - one per year (so that I start the new season with a full bottle)

as you can see the smaller bottle 'pound for pound' is nearly twice the price of the larger one

 

[malagaoth]

We use a 13 kg in 3 days in winter and about a fortnight in summer

WOW!
Winter I can understand but I was away for 8 weeks on Orkney showering every day (you get pretty dirty on the dig) and in the last week used the heating a bit and had the fridge on gas the whole time and used a bottle and a half of gas.

 

[witzend]

in order to save weight I prefer to carry 1 x 13kg and 1 x 3.9kg

I carry 2 x13 kg bottles and wait until the one in use has about 3 days left in it before looking for a replacement. The smell always alerts us when it,ll need changing

 

[malagaoth]

smell?
what smell?

 

[Nabsim]

Not exactly convenient though, what do you do with the bottle when its not connected to the external filler, does it roll about the floor like an incendary wrecking ball?

My major irk is the price of smaller gas bottles, I have room in the locker for 2 x 13kg calor bottles in order to save weight I prefer to carry 1 x 13kg (for use) and 1 x 3.9kg (for emergency - like when you run out when the shops have closed).

A 13kg is currently about £31 - I use about two per year
the 3.9kg costs £17 - one per year (so that I start the new season with a full bottle)

as you can see the smaller bottle 'pound for pound' is nearly twice the price of the larger one

For me the 6kg bottles were about as big as I can manhandle. We could fit a 13kg in the locker physically and the door did shut but it looked too much and wouldn’t like two in there.

I find £24 for a 6kg bottle swap for Calor Propane so even though I am a low user the return is there. Has taken me 6 months to get my head round it though as I was happy to exchange cylinders. Everyone has different reasons for having or not having refillable but it is right for us. There is. Morrison’s not far away from where we are this weekend so will be doing first fill this evening at 55.7p per litre, not sure how LTS go into kg’s For auto gas yet but will post the cost for filling an 11kg Gaslow bottle either later today or tomorrow

 

[Full Member]

For me the 6kg bottles were about as big as I can manhandle. We could fit a 13kg in the locker physically and the door did shut but it looked too much and wouldn’t like two in there.

I find £24 for a 6kg bottle swap for Calor Propane so even though I am a low user the return is there. Has taken me 6 months to get my head round it though as I was happy to exchange cylinders. Everyone has different reasons for having or not having refillable but it is right for us. There is. Morrison’s not far away from where we are this weekend so will be doing first fill this evening at 55.7p per litre, not sure how LTS go into kg’s For auto gas yet but will post the cost for filling an 11kg Gaslow bottle either later today or tomorrow

Liquid propane has a density of about 0.495kg/litre, Neil. So a 6kg bottle will contain approximately 11 litres when 'full'.

Colin

 

[witzend]

smell?
what smell?

Nearly empty cylinders always seem to smell even with refillable, have you thought about getting a direct fill bottle ?

Works for us had a portable gas heater yrs ago always knew when it was about to run out. Been the same with the van first hint of a smell we exchange the mt one only use Intermarche gas and always one nr by. 20 ltr bottle = €20

 

[Nabsim]

Liquid propane has a density of about 0.495kg/litre, Neil. So a 6kg bottle will contain approximately 11 litres when 'full'.

Colin

The gaslow is 11kg, my ‘emergency’ Calor is 6kg Colin so I should expect around 22 litres or £12.42? That’s at the .557ppl down the road

 

[Thebroons]

We have just spent 2 weeks on the Outer Hebrides where the only Lpg pump at Stornoway is still out of order. I did consider getting the gaslow filler connector hose and a Calor cylinder as a back up. Turns out we only used about half the 11kg gaslow bottle as the refill cost £7 back on the mainland.

If it wasn’t for the limited availability of lpg in Scotland we would fit a second gaslow bottle.

 

[Full Member]

The gaslow is 11kg, my ‘emergency’ Calor is 6kg Colin so I should expect around 22 litres or £12.42? That’s at the .557ppl down the road

Spot on, Neil.
Apologies for mis-reading your post. I seem to be suffering from age related problems in much the same way as your good self.
It's worrying.

Colin

 

[jagmanx]

Surely

We have just spent 2 weeks on the Outer Hebrides where the only Lpg pump at Stornoway is still out of order. I did consider getting the gaslow filler connector hose and a Calor cylinder as a back up. Turns out we only used about half the 11kg gaslow bottle as the refill cost £7 back on the mainland.

If it wasn’t for the limited availability of lpg in Scotland we would fit a second gaslow bottle.

A 2nd bottle would obvious double the no of days between top ups
We have 2 x 11kg = 22kg is 44.5 litres so 44 (x 0.8 ?) days (for us) although our longest spell was 37 days and our biggest topup 33.7 litres.

When stood we rarely use EHU so our fridge/freezer (which ia a big Dometic) is the biggest use.
We also use a gas BBQ(Cadac) which I think uses more gas then cooking on the hob.
Hot showers (gas) every day for 2 peeps

If you are going to an LPG desert simply top up at the last known place !

The 2 obvious non lpg places are
1 Finland (no solution just top up at say ALTA in Norway and/or PITEA in Sweden before and after
2 Morocco (dodgy topups possible maybe with a BBQ point)

I do see the advantages of 1 Re-fillable tank and 1 swapable/buyable (also need suitable "pigtails") but we have been fine with our 2x refillable

In both Morocco and Finland wood fires and or campsites can eek out the gas (Wood fires and EHU and cooking facilities)