Small Calor Gas bottles to be discontinued

mariesnowgoose said:
So, Neil discovered a smell of gas in the camper today. 😱

Turns out it was a leaky/broken regulator.

He's ordered a new one, but meantime I'm wondering what the current situation is on 6kg propane cylinders?
(the one the regulator was attached to is now empty 😟 )

I'm a bit confused (nowt new there!!!) but are 6kg propane (non-refillable) cylinders easily available these days?? :unsure:

We do have a spare 6kg propane cylinder which is half full, plus an extra 6kg propane which is empty, plus an empty 3.9kg propane which came with the van).

The half-full 6kg will suffice for now (I'm supposed to be going up the coast in the camper for a party this weekend, just need enough to fuel the fridge and the hob for the kettle).

Maybe now is the the perfect time to actually nip down the road and visit Chainsaw Charlie! (y):)
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or learn how to fill your empties from bigger bottles
 
n brown said:
or learn how to fill your empties from bigger bottles
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Great idea if you want your next vehicle to be a one berth in black.

hearse.jpg
 
6kilo ones will be around for a long time I think, but Calor didn't think ahead and make more 6kilo cylinders for people who could upgrade to them so there is a bit of a shortage, we had to ring around a bit in June up in Scotland but found some on a farmers suppliers en route so no biggy just plane ahead we start looking as soon as I swap over to the full one.
 
Refilling a small bottle from a big one is very easy but potentially very very dangerous. The issue is the ullage space. It is vital that you leave it empty, so you must NEVER fill past 80% full.

The reason for this is that LPG expands a huge amount as it warms, so if you get a sunny day and a full bottle, the pressure can easily exceed 1000psi and be enough for the bottle to burst.

The temptation is to overfill. That's why it's illegal and dangerous to refill bottles yourself. I have had a job doing it, but we always weighed the bottles to make sure we weren't overfilling. DIY refillers tend not to.

An exploding full bottle will spoil several people's day.
 
Geek said:
£26.70 for 6kg? That's £2.22 per litre. It's only about 72p per litre at the pumps. Get a refillable!
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My new van will have a Truma combi diesel heater, my use of gas will be small.
I currently carry a 13Kg and a 6Kg.
The new van will carry 2 13Kg cylinders.
I did consider having one refillable and a Calor.
 
Geek said:
£26.70 for 6kg? That's £2.22 per litre. It's only about 72p per litre at the pumps. Get a refillable!
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Not always viable on cost grounds though even if you DIY it you need two hole saws, arbour & a drill to do it plus the kit.
 
Fisherman said:
I did consider having one refillable and a Calor.
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That's what I've got. I use the refillable as the default and the Calor if the refillable is empty and LPG isn't available.

I've only used the Calor once, (on a Sunday in rural Spain)
 
Pudsey Bear said:
6kilo ones will be around for a long time I think, but Calor didn't think ahead and make more 6kilo cylinders for people who could upgrade to them so there is a bit of a shortage, we had to ring around a bit in June up in Scotland but found some on a farmers suppliers en route so no biggy just plane ahead we start looking as soon as I swap over to the full one.
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FWIW, I had the same issue at the beginning of May, which was the last time I needed a replacement. This wasn't helped by the CCC stopping their club sites from stocking Calor gas (the warden at Moffat told me the club had banned them from selling them as the club itself intended to provide that service -- but hadn't yet got round to it!). It also wasn't helped by my having an empty Calorlite (now discontinued) for exchange and was looking for a standard 6kg propane. After three days of ringing around, I found an outlet in Blairgowrie that had one exchange cylinder left, which cost me around £30.
Geek said:
£26.70 for 6kg? That's £2.22 per litre. It's only about 72p per litre at the pumps. Get a refillable!
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Even at the £30 I paid, a refillable doesn't make economic sense unless you use a lot of gas. A twin 6kg GasIt kit currently costs well over £300. I use about two 6kg cylinders a year, and so that represents ~ 5 years worth of exchange cylinders -- and that's without the cost of the LPG, which is over a pound a litre in many filling stations -- i.e. almost £12 for 6kg. Besides that, LPG is getting ever scarcer. For example, there's only 1 LPG filling station within 30 miles of my home, and that's currently out of order according to mylpg.eu.
 
Not too bad here we have 2 LPG fillers in town.

Keighley is extremely well served for a small town of 50k people we have a Morrisons, Asda, Sainsburys, Aldi, an Iceland and a Farmfoods, plus a B&M and pricestretcher. We also have 6 petrol stations.
 
Best to have both IMO refillable and Calor certainly in the UK. Cost doesnt bother me per litre but running out of gas does. Quite easy to do now in the UK if you only have refillable if you do a lot of remote areas whereas calor you can always get (usually)
 
Pudsey Bear said:
That's 18 months old so it may have changed by now.
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No updates available, seems like a done deal.
LPG positions to be replaced with charging points seems logical.

Found this online

A decrease in demand means less revenue for fuel stations and no incentive to continue investing in stocking LPG. It's expected LPG will be phased out entirely in the next couple of years as fuel station owners investing in EV charging points instead. October 2022.

Its looking like LPG is on its way out.
This was one reasonwhy I changed the order on my new van from Gas/electric to a diesel combi. Garages won’t keep supplying something at a loss.

Maybe I should start a thread on this.
 
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