Leaving Calor and Setting up Safefill - some considerations

The disadvantage of a propriety filled cylinder, apart from being more than twice the price is that when a bottle gets low you either have to change it whilst it has gas remaining, or carry a second cylinder ready as a replacement. Our Bailey Unicorn is nose heavy and we run near the 100 kg Alko chassis hitch weight limit so we prefer to carry  just one cylinder. This is possible with a refillable as they can be topped up to whatever level you need at any stage so no fear of running out during a trip.

 

Being caravaners we needed a removable cylinder so that we could access a gas pump easily (they can be tucked away from the  usual diesel pumps). The decision was to go for Safefill with a composite body allowing you to see how much gas remains (more reliable than some gauges and essential when running on just one cylinder). We started looking in early summer but the red Safefill cylinder was out of stock throughout the UK. A slightly larger blue 20 litre also quickly went out of stock but thanks to a tip from Merve on the CT, Dickinson's Caravans, Bradford, tel.. 01274 3925250 had some 4 blue cylinders available (they still have 3). They also have various adapters so you can fill up when in various other countries - another plus for making the switch.

 

Our Bailey carries the gas in the front locker and has a couple of recessed base plates into which Calor etc sits firmly and requires only a restraining strap. Oddly the large blue cylinder is slightly narrower than the red at 306 mm wide and it fits well. The red is 4mm wider and might not seat as well in the base plate . The blue is 580mm tall (80 more than the red) so you need to check your locker. Both Safefills empty weigh 7kg and are lighter than the tradition steel Calor but just over 2 kg heavier than Calorlite. However they hold more gas than the 6 kg Calor (red Safefill holds 7.5 kg and blue 10 kg) As already mentioned you don’t have to fill them to the top but it is useful to have the extra capacity.

 

Filling the cylinder for the first time proved interesting. I had previously checked with my local garage at Ullswater Road, Penrith who were happy to accept cylinders and offered to show me how to use the pump. Some garages have been known to refuse refills on portable cylinders fearing unsafe home made conversion jobs. The procedure is as follows. The gas nozzle looks a lot like a petrol/diesel filler with a brass socket which clips over the Safefill inlet. There is no additional attachment to fit in the UK. When clipped on with a slight twist to engage two lugs it still felt a little loose.  After a second attempt with no change I gave the nozzle trigger a slight squeeze resulting in a hiss, a whiff of gas and the whole thing became securely locked.  At this point I opened the valve on the cylinder and full of confidence squeezed the trigger as you would on a traditional fuel pump. Nothing happened. After a few more abortive attempts I admitted defeat and got help. At that stage, once the nozzzle is locked on and the valve open you forget the trigger and go to the pump and hold in a button which starts the fill up. The litres whir round just like a diesel pump and you can stop at any point. However when the cylinder is 80% full it stops automatically. The cost for 20 litres (10 kg) works out at £14 whilst the equivalent amount at Calorlite rates would be £38. Fitting the cylinder into the front locker of the caravan was straight forward but it is noticeable bulkier and heavier than a single Calorite  (combined weight is 17 Kg) but of course you could make it lighter by carrying less gas. Running gas to the cooker did result in some of the flames standing away from the burners, particularly in the oven but after 10 minutes settled down to normal. It seemed as if the pressure was high but I have noticed that once before on a Calorlite. Now it all lights up first time including the water heater and fridge.

 

The cost of the Safefill blue cylinder is £159 and £149 for the red. Is it worth it? It depends on how you caravan and whether you need the benefits. Past experience has shown when off EHUs in the summer and using gas to run the fridge, cook and some water heating that 1 kg of gas lasts 2 days. Now with showers and using the heating it could be more like 1 kg per day (£1.40 using Safefill)  If you permanently use EHU’s a typical Calorlite will last about a year and take you a longtime to recoup your initial purchase, assuming of course you have already got Calor cylinders. If you have not, the set up price of two full Calorlites is in the region of £80. The real saving comes from dispensing with EHUs with CLs charging as little as £5 per night. Our next purchase is a 120 watt solar panel adding another £200 but the combined price of £360 is recoverable in about 30 nights. Savings however are not our prime objective, instead we prefer quite CLs where you can almost guarantee a pitch every weekend at short notice and have plenty of space. It also means not running out of gas halfway through cooking a meal. 

 

Now I need to get rid of two full Calorlites!