Type of gas bottle
HI all.
I've just bought my first caravan and will be taking delivery in a couple of weeks. At the end of october my first holiday (week long) is already booked.
That said, I know that the caravan will need a couple of gas bottles. Having done a little bit of research (and using knowledge gained over years) I'm rulling out Butane, as I don't like that it doesn't work well when it's cold. As I'm interesting in
getting away in the winter, I need to have something that will cope with low temperatures.
This leaves me with a few options. I'm looking for large bottles of gas for my caravan, and there is a couple of options that I know about....
Calor lite or Safe fill.
I don't know how much these bottles will cost, or if I'll need to have two bottles straight away (if they're expensive, one bottle might be enough for now with me getting the second later on, the site does have electric hookup, so I'm only likley to use
the gas for cooking)
I"m not sure what the best way to go would be, both options are my first thoughts.
What I'm looking for here is what other people think about these and maybe other options that I've not thought about. My thoughts are initial costs for the bottles, and on going runnning costs. For example, I know that a Safefill bottle is something
like £150 ish when I looked, but if the Calor lite are much cheaper it might be a much better solution. Also what about the weight, is the safefill lighter than the calor lite? What about other bottle types? (btw, I'm thinking about the big bottles
6Kg I think)
Comments
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There will be many that will say that you should go for the Safefill option as overtime it will become the cheapest option. However the key word is overtime. It will very much depend on how much time you will spend in the caravan, especially in winter and
whether you are likely to use sites with no electricity frequently. If on the other hand you are only likely to spend 4/6 weeks away always with hook-up each year it will take a long time to get the benefit and that makes the Calor Lite a better proposition.David
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David has it in a nutshell...
the main thing to consider (but as someone new to this, you wont yet have the experience....) is whether you might use sites without EHU, which would put a higher demand on gas (for heating etc) and therefore swing the thoughts to cheaper gas....like Safefill....or
at least getting larger bottles (12kg) as these are cheaper to refill, per litre....though still eye wateringly expensive compared to pumped LPG.BTW, i wouldnt call 6kg Calor bottles.....'large'....
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There are other options and I will place some of the arguments that might aid you.
Also 6 kgs is not the largest, most caravans are designed to accept 11 kg standard steel bottles and various companies but not Calor can supply these.
Buying as large an amount per exchange is always the cheaper way of buying gas.
Of the standard steel bottled alternative products Flo-gas I suggest is now the most widely available and supplies in both 6 and 11kg size bottles. They are extensive suppliers to the building trade so the network of sources also includes building/roofing trade suppliers [Builders Merchants]. There, discounts are IME commonly available for the asking. An 11 kg standard steel bottle will have an empty weight of about 11 to 12 kgs. The coupling in these bottles uses the left handed screw POL fitting as does Calor and other minor suppliers in the UK. A Flo-gas bottle rental is similar to Calor's or I found waived all together by my building merchant.
I now use a product that was originally brought to the market by BP, but has been acquired by Flo-gas. This is traded as BP Gaslight and comes in 5 and 10 kg sizes and like Safefill is not steel but a plastic composite; this offers a massive weight saving as the 10 kg bottle itself weighs just 5.3 kgs.
These have an advantage over most other products in that they use a 27 mm “clip-on” connection, making exchanging somewhat easier and quicker. Sourcing these exchanges is somewhat less flexible than either Calor or Flo-gas but a ready source is the Homebase network and there are other outlets that were originally BP gas traders that remain able to sell it. There seems that a restrictive contractual issue left over from the past means at present even Flo-gas's own dealers are not allowed to sell BP lights. A garden centre in the next village is my source. A bottle rental is about £33.
Then as identified there is Safefill another plastic composite bottle. The massive advantage here is it is a self fill bottle allowing the purchase of the gas at garage forecourt type prices. A down side here in the South is a quite extensively applied embargo on the free access to refilling at forecourt gas pumps. None of my viable forecourts will allow me to do so as the staff are instructed to not allow it, quoting company policy and insurance conditions, anyhow the end results is I can't without subterfuge, refill at any local forecourt. I can at a lorry depot but it is some 13 miles each way and out of our way. Safefill do the bottles in several sizes. I would be using them if not for the real refilling limitations both at home and possibly whilst travelling.
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in addition to the above, and my point about where (non ehu?) you might stay, the other 'where' question is regarding touring outside the uk and how you would get your gas there...
there are many ways to do this, if you let us know the 'where' and the 'where', i can help with some pointers...
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Like 'ocsid' I use a 10kg Gaslight and its a very good weight saving over the steel bottles. I am a user where I use EHU where possible and my 10kg Gaslight has seen 84 nights away so far with only about 45% usage. It should see me through next year but will probably exchange it at my local Hire place for approx £24, before next years 12 weeker across the water.
The Gaslight has the advantage of being able to see the level, so giving you plenty of opportunity in monitoring it, a lot of Hire places still sell the Gaslight and a lot cheaper than Sainsbury's who also are an outlet.
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It does as others have implied depend on usage. We have just comeback from 2.5 weeks abroad with ehu followed by 4 nights on a rally without ehu. During the stays on Ehu we used arround half of a 8.2kg safefil. That it is probably more than most people
would use. However I used the gas a couple of times to boost the hot water, cool down the fridge and BBQ was used a lot. The gas bottle emptied just before we left the rally. So about 4kg in 4 days.I refilled the bottle yesterday and it cost £8.18, which represents a tremendous saving over the cost Calorlites or Gaslites, but whether this saving is worth the initial outlay of the bottle and the hassle factor of getting refilled, is very much a personal
decision based upon gas usage and where you can refil. For me the answer is clear for others I would think less so , or even in favour of standard bottles.0 -
I probably should have said that we are very large consumers of LPG as we rally a lot, tend to avoid 5 van sites with EHUs and push the season wide. Thus why if there was an easier access to refill I would have gone to Safefill rather than BP Gaslight,
though having checked my refilling options that was not a practical route. I hope that access to refill at forecourts improves but I feel it is likely to go the otherway.0 -
Astro is asking the right questions at the right time.
If the Safefill option is chosen, the cost to purchase the Calor bottles and the loan agreement (although there are ways to get bottles without paying the loan agreement) will go a long way towards the extra cost of a Safefill system.
I have worked it out that it takes about 10 to 11 fill ups with a Safefill 10kg before the full cost of the bottle is recovered.
You now have to work out how long it will take to use that much gas and that's a calculation only you can make depending upon how and when you use the Caravan.
I have to travel about 10 miles each way to fill up the Safefill but I have no problem doing that but it's certainly worth checking where you would fill up. The nice thing is you don't have to run the gas right out as you can see the levels in the cylinder
and fill it up at any time.Good luck
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If starting from scratch Safefill will very quickly recoup your expenditure as you can see the gas level you can top up before you run out so could manage as I do with one bottle. I have the large one and it is a fraction of the price to fill compared to
Calor. Do check the size of your locker first though. Obviously your usage counts and if you like getting away from it all and not rely on EHU it really would pay to go refillable. If you expect to stay on club sites forever then go for Calor. The thread
on How to Survive etc gives a lot of info.0 -
If I was starting out now I'd get a single Safefill and pick up an empty small propane bottle on ebay or similar to exchange if you feel a backup is essential.
Two calorlite rentals go a long way towards the purchase of a Safefill but as we were give two as part of the deal when buying the van I can't make the figures stack up to change now
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There is no doubt that over the (very) long term Safefill is the route to be taken but for most people the break point is many many years away
Gas bottles can be bought off EBay for around £10 and if on EHU , assuming a very conservative usage of 80 days and refill costs of £20 ,equates to a cost of 25p per day
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I would +1 for the second hand Calor bottle route, you can exchange any size calor Bottle for any other and swap between butane and propane too, so if you can buy any empty calor bottle on ebay etc I strongly suspect it'll be a lot cheaper than starting a new 'bottle contract'.
I don't know for a fact whether you can swap a metal bottle for a calor lite though, so if you definitely want 'lite' that might not work for you.
I carry a Camping Gaz bottle with an adaptor to use as a spare (I use it for my gas BBQ too), it's smaller and lighter than a second Calor bottle. camping gaz is widely available on the continent too (you can't buy Calor abroad, which might be another consideration for you if you intend to long European hols).
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We normally use our c/van for well over a hundred night away per year always on sites /cls with ehu and one 6kg propane last into the next near,so for us the set up costs of Safefill is not worth it as it would take years to get any return
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I agree guys, to go with Safefill or not comes down to useage.
I expect to have my tenth fill up next year so it has taken 3 years so for me it's been a good buy.
Forget to say, I only have one and carry an empty calor just in case if something happens, I will not be caught out.
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I agree guys, to go with Safefill or not comes down to useage.
I expect to have my tenth fill up next year so it has taken 3 years so for me it's been a good buy.
Forget to say, I only have one and carry an empty calor just in case if something happens, I will not be caught out.
How does an empty Calor provide a continuing supply of gas?
I have an adaptor to use my BBQs Camping Gaz 907, but if I ever had to use its gas for the van the cost would make me weep.
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Hi all.
Thanks for all the replies and thoughts. It's making me lean toward spending the extra and getting a single Safefill bottle for now - the largest one that I can get into my locker. I'm not sure of the room in the locker, but I suspect that the 12Kg bottles
will fit with no problem. They're the ones that come 1/2 way up your leg, right?My plans are to go away mostly at weekends and mostly on sites with an EHU, however there will be times when I want to attend astronomy star parties, these tend to be in places like Keilder forest. I don't think that EHU will be available there, so it'll
be ralling condistions. The info on how long a bottle will last from some of the posts above give me an idea that one bottle will be enough for now. With maybe a second bottle added later on.Calor lite is still in the frame. But I think the other bottles are out of the question.
My thought here is why carry more weight than needed? Whilst I have my caravan packed out with stuff, I'm still being consious of the weight. Especially as the gas locker is at the front of the van. This combined with space wheel (same locker) and bike
rack - on A Frame in front of locker (continental style) means that my noseweight is also under consideration here.0 -
We generally use Club Sites with EHUs and only use Calor gas for cooking so we use very little and the cost is hardly worth worrying about. Bearing this in mind it's worth thinking about having two smaller bottles where a quick switch-over can be made and
the empty bottle filled when convenient.0 -
If you look at the Safefill website they give accurate measurements of the various cylinder sizes.
Interestingly the Safeill cylinders are the same but modified (by the factory not Safefill) cylinders as used by BP Gas, Macgas, and the french calypso cylinder.
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Cost is not the only factor here, at least not for us. The fact that with our 10kg Safefill we can can always go away with a full bottle is a major convenience factor for us.
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The factors that I'm thinking about are
cost - (including total cost of ownership)
weight
convenience
Cost - calor lite is more expensive than safefill to refil, but safefill bottles are expensive. How long will a safefill bottle last? I know that Calor lite are rented bottles so and are swapped out every refil, so effectively for me, they last forever
(hence the higher price)On the weight front, safefil and calor lite are in the lead. Calor lite looks to be only a 6KG bottle, where are safefill have a 10Kg bottle. It looks to me like the Safefill bottles are lighter than the Calor
lite bottle, so 2 7.5Kg or 10Kg bottles might be the best approach in the long run. idea is is to fille one bottle, then when it gets to about 1/2 capacity, fill the other bottle, then switch when needed. For my MPTLM, I'll be making sure to leave capacity
for both bottles to be completely full.Convenience. For me, there is no difference which bottle type I go for. The local place for filling a Safefill bottle is the same place that I'd go to replace any other kind of bottle. Plus, being able to fill a safefill on a garage forecourt (when policies
are updated from the sounds of other discussions) is a bonus.I don't see any downsides here at all. This is why I'm leaning towards spending more money on a safefill bottle to get me started. Just need to find out the size of the locker now to know which bottle to go for. (I hope it's the biggest as that looks
like the best for keeping costs down)0 -
We have a 10kg gaslight - the same bottle as the biggest safefill but a different colour. It last us ages , even though we go off grid several times a year.
I would buy a single 10kg safefill and see how you get on with that. You can always buy a second if you need to but with the ability to refill easily there should be no need for two. It has the added advantage of keeping weight down as well
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I would buy a single 10kg safefill and see how you get on with that. You can always buy a second if you need to but with the ability to refill easily there should be no need for two. It has the added advantage
of keeping weight down as wellSingle safefill for me too. We are mainly off EHU (even on sites where it is a charged option... anything more then £1/night it is cheaper to be on gas). We reckon about 0.7KG gas per night during the summer (fridge, hot water, cooking). A 10KG safefill
would last about 2 weeks during the summer.0
