Type of gas bottle
Comments
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We have the middle size Safefill and it lasts us between 11 - 14 days when not on EHU and costs between £7.50 and £9.00 to fill up. We don't regret it at all but do wish we had perhaps gone to a safefill retailer to see if a large one would have fitted
easily enough into our locker so we could comfortably last a fortnight. (we bought ours online.). We also didn't realise you can get a different pigtail with a wheel on which we should have bought when we got the bottle but didin't realise until later)0 -
There are some long term questions as to whether gas will be easily available from filling station in years to come. The gas powered car has dropped out of popularity and as numbers reduce so might the demand with fewer places stocking it. This may not happen
but it is a consideration when looking at the options.0 -
If you use Calor etc where you replace when empty you really need two bottles. With the likes of Safefill you can see the gas level and better still don't have to wait until it is empty. You can refill it at any point. I did a 3 weeks trip round Ireland
last summer on about 9 kgs of gas and there managed with one 10 kg Safefill. Although there is an outlay of about £165 the refills cost a quarter of Calor. Furthermore if you don't have any cylinders you can put the cost of renting Calor etc to owning your
own Safefill.0 -
Astro76 does not say what type of heating system his van will have. Some of the newer models can be very energy hungry. If so, refillable bottles give greater options both here on sites and CL's with low amperage, and abroad.
I don't know that the heating system is in my Caravan (don't pickup the caravan until until the 10th september. What I do know is that it's got a 2Kw max on the electrical setting.
I'm really leaning towards getting the biggest Safefil that will fit into my carvan locker. From the measurements that I saw on the Safefill website, I think that the 10Kg bottle should fit without any problems. I like that once the bottle has been
paid for, refilling will mean that it's cheaper in the long run... and if for some reason it becomes impossible to get a refil, they I can always switch to calor lite or something like that until I can find a new refil location.0 -
beg your pardon chaps - and especially Tirril, I'm sure years ago when I first started vanning I read somewhere that you should always disconnect before towing so I've been doing it ever since, however I can't find any ref to it now so I bow to your superior
knowledge - one thing less to worry about when I pack up next week! Thanks,0 -
I've just been reading up on that and have just completed the club practical carvaning course. The instruction given to me loud and clear is the "Make sure that the gas is off".
There wasn't any mention of disconnecting the bottle.
Now reading between the lines, if the only way that you can be sure that the gas is off is to disconnect the bottle. Then that's what you need to do. For some just turning off the regulator is enough (I was told to do this when I hired a motorhome earlier
in the year).0 -
Sorry Astro but I am not following your logic. Every removable cylinder has a valve to turn it on/off. Without a valve there would be a leak when changing a cylinder unless it was completely drained. The valve is obviously capable of retaining the gas when closed otherwise there would be leaks all over the stockists supply yard. The reason you need to close the valve when travelling is that in the case of an accident a rubber hose maybe cut or a brass pipe severed allowing to escape if the cyclinder valve was open. If you keep disconnecting the supply you are encouraging air into the pipe work around the caravan which then needs pushing through (just like when changing cylinders). I don't see any safety merit in disconnecting and infact believe it justs adds work and possibly more wear on the thread of your coupling.
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I think I owe everyone an apology - again! I put the earlier apology on the wrong thread, I was arguing on the nose-weight discussion that I alway disconnect. I think I may have misread "isolate" for "disconnect" in an instruction years ago. Reading all
of the above I'm now quite sure turning off is sufficient. As Tirril says, it's one less thing to worry about and less wear and tear on the valve.0 -
Sorry Astro but I am not following your logic. Every removable cylinder has a valve to turn it on/off. Without a valve there would be a leak when changing a cylinder unless it was completely drained. The valve is obviously capable of retaining the gas when
closed otherwise there would be leaks all over the stockists supply yard. The reason you need to close the valve when travelling is that in the case of an accident a rubber hose maybe cut or a brass pipe severed allowing to escape if the cyclinder valve was
open. If you keep disconnecting the supply you are encouraging air into the pipe work around the caravan which then needs pushing through (just like when changing cylinders). I don't see any safety merit in disconnecting and infact believe it justs adds work
and possibly more wear on the thread of your coupling.What I'm planning on doing is turning off the valve, but leaving everything connected for the reasons that you said.
All I was saying was that if you feel that it is safer to completely disconnect the bottle then do it. Yes, you have points on wear and tear, I get that. My logic is that if someone still doesn't feel safe unless the bottle is disconnected why should I
tell them off? That was my logic, nothing more to it than "whatever makes you happy".0 -
Spot on Astro. They are your bottles to do with as you want
But some very experienced posters have tried to offer guidance.
See you at Keilder sometime. I am also partial to a star party
Hopefully it'll be Kielder next year. I'm already booked for a week at the SGL star party in Hereford this year.
Back to the bottles. I've got no intention of disconnecting them every time I use them, just need to make sure that the valves are properly closed.
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As your very first respondant DavidKlyne said - it depends on usage.
Personally I went the Safefil route - I can just squeeze a 10kg Safefill in the gas-locker, only need one as I can see when it is getting low and it is easy for me to get it refilled before each trip. I did a post here http://www.caravanclub.co.uk/community/discussions/welcome-hobby-talk/tips-for-making-caravanning-touring-cheaper/Safefill-10Kg/rt/1446515/
regarding my calculated break even - which I know from experience now will pay for itself after approx 6 fills (i.e. 60kg of gas).But as everyone has stated, if you mainly do EHU sites without need for gas heating then 60kg of gas could take a few years. Alternatively if you plan some non-EHU colder weather use then you could break-even within a year or 2
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I bought a Safefill bottle today. I can get it filled for about £10 at the same place where I would have exchanged a Calor lite bottle. Whilst the bottle cost me £150, the refil is cheap, also I can refil at other places too - Hopefully safefill will
be able to educate the main fuel companies. In the meantime, if I find that there's a problem with me going thorugh alot of fuel (which is still an unknown) I'll simply get a second bottle. The bottle itself is very light even when full. So this will
really help keep my caravans noseweight under control, I can see myself having to put the heavy stuff in the front of my caravan to make the noseweight up to a good weight - means it'll make carrying my bike on the A-Frame easier.0 -
I have just bought my mtorhome and the dealer advised that a 6kg calor bottle would be sufficient, I will probably turn to EHU sites more often than not, but the fact i have solar panels installed aslo will this negate the need for so much gas and be why
i advised that a 6kg bottle will be enough?0 -
With solar panels installed you are likely to use more gas as you will question why you are paying so much for sites with EHU and go to less expensive sites. You also pay proportionally more for gas with smaller exchange cylinders.
Get the biggest gas bottles that will fit in your locker
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With solar panels installed you are likely to use more gas as you will question why you are paying so much for sites with EHU and go to less expensive sites. You also pay proportionally more for gas with smaller exchange cylinders.
Get the biggest gas bottles that will fit in your locker
Thanks for the info. In respect to the pricing of sites, I dont seem to see much of a difference between the ones i look at.
Can you advise aswell why i would use more gas with solar panels (sorry not with it today and dont quite understand why) surely with a charge being delivered to the battery i would only be using Gas to cook with.
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Can you advise aswell why i would use more gas with solar panels (sorry not with it today and dont quite understand why) surely with a charge being delivered to the battery i would only be using Gas to cook with.
If you are on a non EHU site then you will be using your gas to run the fridge and heat the van. Our first Gaslight 10 kg lasted us more than a year but on a non EHU CL in late Sept last year we got through a half full cylinder in a week!
I have looked as the Safefill option and at the moment, for me, it is not viable due to the price I pay for refils of my Gaslight and the lack of places that I know I can refill the Safefill at. Should refilling become easier,that is more readily available,I
would probably buy one 10kg cylinder and continue carrying my 6kg Gaslight that I use with the BBQ as back up.0 -
I guess we are not big users of gas compared with some, so we go for 2 calorlite bottles. I use one for 'the caravan' and one for the Cadac. I was a bit concerned when we went on out 7 weeks tour of Europe. The Caravan bottle was about half full and the
Cadac bottle was just under half full. I wondered about changing one, but didn't bother in the end. The Cadac bottle (which we used much more frequently was virtually out when we packed up to head for Calais, but the Caravan one must have had a lot more
in it as we hardly used it. Fortunately we have one electric ring on the cooker which we used whenever we could (instead of the gas rings).When the Cadac bottle runs out and I change it for a full one, that will be put on the caravan and the half empty one will go for the Cadac. We always use more gas on the Cadac, so I always keep the fullest bottle connected to the van to ensure we don't
run out.David
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Can you advise aswell why i would use more gas with solar panels (sorry not with it today and dont quite understand why) surely with a charge being delivered to the battery i would only be using Gas to cook with.
If you are on a non EHU site then you will be using your gas to run the fridge and heat the van. Our first Gaslight 10 kg lasted us more than a year but on a non EHU CL in late Sept last year we got through a half full cylinder in a week!
I have looked as the Safefill option and at the moment, for me, it is not viable due to the price I pay for refils of my Gaslight and the lack of places that I know I can refill the Safefill at. Should refilling become easier,that is more readily available,I
would probably buy one 10kg cylinder and continue carrying my 6kg Gaslight that I use with the BBQ as back up.Excellent thanks for that info, short term we will for sure be looking at EHU until become a bit more confident and experienced with the MH. Appreciate the input very much thank you.
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even when on ehu, it doesnt stop you having a 'play' at running your appliances for a short time using gas....just to get familiar with the controls etc...
so, gas hob easy....
hot water and heating need a bit more thought, depending on if Truma or Alde, but you should be able to manage
also you can get to understand how your electrical gadgets (tablet, phone etc) can be charged directly from a usb or other 12 v socket...similarly your tv....
practicing, for confidence, while with the safety of an ehu backup is a great way to get into 'off gridding' .
some CLs and the C&CC temp holiday sites only charge around £8-10 a night, so compared to a normal CC site £20-25 thats a minimum of a tenner a night saving....£70 ++ a week...
throw in your gas at a quarter of the Calor price, if you decide to go for a refillable, filled at a normal LPG pump and youre away....
i know you're new to this and dont want to overload you with info, but with solar power and cheap gas....who needs an orange cable?
....and once you get tempted to go overseas......even better...
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Can you advise aswell why i would use more gas with solar panels (sorry not with it today and dont quite understand why) surely with a charge being delivered to the battery i would only be using Gas to cook with.
If you are on a non EHU site then you will be using your gas to run the fridge and heat the van. Our first Gaslight 10 kg lasted us more than a year but on a non EHU CL in late Sept last year we got through a half full cylinder in a week!
I have looked as the Safefill option and at the moment, for me, it is not viable due to the price I pay for refils of my Gaslight and the lack of places that I know I can refill the Safefill at. Should refilling become easier,that is more readily available,I
would probably buy one 10kg cylinder and continue carrying my 6kg Gaslight that I use with the BBQ as back up.Excellent thanks for that info, short term we will for sure be looking at EHU until become a bit more confident and experienced with the MH. Appreciate the input very much thank you.
With respect I think you are making a mistake, if you don't go non EHU straight away then I don't think you will ever have the confidence to do it. It isn't difficult. But if you are to do it work out what the biggest gas bottle that will fit in your locker
because the difference in cost of gas in 6kg bottle compared to an 11 or 13kg bottle is huge.0 -
Thanks all for your help and comments.
Boff, understand what your saying. I will have the confidence to go off grid with EHU in the future. Confident of that, infact already planning on it in spring time. I am real new never had a MH or Been in a tourer since i was a little kid, so everything
about this is new. So this is to make sure im not putting my family at risk in any way and to be confident of pressing the right buttons etc.0 -
The one caveat on the larger gas bottles is the possibility of factoring in your osteopath's bills. I 'inherited' a full 13Kg bottle but decided it was too heavy to wrestle with. By a bit of horsetrading with son-in-law, I swapped it for a quarter full gaslite
one.0 -
We use the 6kg Calor Propane.
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If starting from scratch, that is, buying your first bottle, then I would definitely go for a refillable, be it Gaslow or Safefill. I swapped to Safefill over a year ago and am now "in credit" so to speak..... Don't forget that a hefty deposit is required
on inital purchase from Calor, Flogas etc and this deminishes the longer you have the bottle, so in fact you never get your money back and pay for the pleasure of being fleeced by the big (and little) gas suppliers, With your own bottle, you stand a good chance
of recovering most of you outlay when selling, if you decide to, lots of people will buy them off you. You will also save approx. £20 per refill, do the maths...... I must make it clear that this is my opinion and I'm not trying to sway you one way or the
other. The choice is yours....
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