Latest Calor Press Release on Calor Lite
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The problem with this is of course that Calor, who own Autogas absolutely refuse to accept that things have moved on and that there are now stand alone cylinders that are perfectly safe to fill- Safefill being one of them. They refuse to allow filling? Why? Because it affects their bottom line- they are losing rental money- that is the reason! The Red Guide is amended and St 26 is rewritten but hasn’t been released- more proof that the industry is run by precious fat cats who just don’t want to lose what they have had for the last 70 years- a monopoly! Writing to the Trade and Industry secretary doesn’t seem to help either. Oh well, Safefill continue to get fill points so Calor can do what they like- they will not stop a revolution in LPG. Morrisons Supermarkets have recognised the inherent safety of Safefill. The cylinder has not been a total waste of money as it can be sold if you really can’t find anywhere either locally or on your way to site like I do. There are always people who want Safefill!
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Called into our local Calor depot yesterday to exchange a 6kg bottle and thankfully ( we're going to Portugal in January ) was allowed to swap my standard for a Lite. As we carry two bottles I will definitely return to the depot and exchange my other standard for a Lite before our " Winter Sun " trip.
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You hit the nail on the head, Calor have always been a poor company to deal with. The choice is not actually ours as refillables and refill thereof is not universal, My local autogas will only allow caravans with permanent tanks fitted.
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We went to our local calor dealer , we were returning a lite container because we thought it was empty and said we need now to change it to the heavily type because of them having problems
To begin he said it wasn’t empty .
Then said you don’t need to go back to the other heavy type . He said they are fine and still in used and available . So we took it back home .
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Odd, if you took it out to return, normally you can here the gas sloshing about if there is any in it. Once that stops, or if there is very little sloshing, it isn't going to run for long. When we took ours to the dealer in Cirencester recently, because the site had run out. He had plenty and said they were only being retired when they were damaged and failed testing. So eventually they will become scarce, as they are not replacing them, however it will take some time.
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It seems to be taking Calor a long time to come up with a replacement for the "Lite". My original post was well over a year ago. Wonder if they have got cold feet? The technology of light weigh fibre glass construction has been around for years so surely it should only be a case of finding a supply source? Perhaps given the shortage of Safefill cylinders they can't find anyone with sufficient manufacturing capacity? Anyone heard any whispers? In their announcement they said they were working with the Clubs so I don't know if Rowena could see if anyone in the Club has any information?
David
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The original update was in August 2017 when Calor said :-
"research is still ongoing, it is too early to provide any definite timescales but you can be assured as soon as we have something which is suitable for the market and which has the approval of our customers then it will be brought to market. In the meantime, we will provide regular updates to keep our customers informed on progress."
The use of the expression "Still ongoing imples that 16 months ago research (to find a replacement product ) was meaningfully underway.
As I understand it no product has been brought to market and no updates have been provided. In the absence of any updates it is unclear how "market testing" of customers reactions to a new product could be measured.
In short it looks like Calor Gas have either been unable to come up with a substitute and/or have lost interest or momentum in pursuing a solution. Certainly they have not kept their promise to issue updates.
Calor is a large company with an arcane corporate structure of an international character. They had a fall in profits between 2016 and 2017 of £10 million.
I think this is the sort of situation where a club which has the clout of the CAMC might usefully ask them to say what is going on.
Personally with a van with only uses gas for cooking and has an underslung LPG tank I buy gas every other year and not from Calor.
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If the judgement about it being empty was based on what the "so called" gauge was indicating, it is easy to understand being mislead. They are notoriously unreliable and even if they work indicate "empty" long before being so; appalling design best do Steve's shake test or better still use a balance to weigh it and do the Tare subtraction arithmetic.
Probably as they found out with the Lites it is too challenging to get a bottle suitable for the roofers to throw off and onto buildings and trucks?
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Has anyone else heard the rumour that Calor have abandoned development of a new lit canister as "too costly" and are reintroducing the calorlite unchanged. More being manufactured?
Heard this morning at a caravan dealers near Loughborough.
John E
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I did contact Calor over the weekend on the subject of the replacement cylinder for the Calor Lite and this is what the reply was :-
Hi David, thank you for the reply, apologises for the delay in the response. Currently Calor are still at the testing/research phase for a new cylinder to replace the Lite and there hasn't been a timeframe set for when we are looking to launch the replacement into the market. Kind Regards
So it looks as though the replacement, whilst being investigated, is a little way off from being introduced. I suppose once they have completed tests and have ordered stock etc it could suddenly appear but no timeframe at the moment. Calor Lite does seem to be in reasonable supply at the moment particularly on campsites, at least that has been my experience.
David
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I did hear David that Calor were to be supplied from Hexagon Regasco with new, lightweight cylinders- but have cancelled the order due to them deciding to carry on with Calorlites - I wonder if that’s fact or fiction? Oooo the gossip!!
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Our local Calor centre is still receiving Calorlite bottles, the supply has not been stopped and they continue to readily sell them.
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Attwoolls camping told me today, that they were contacted on Wednesday 13/01/19, by Calor and told the whole lightweight system was being discontinued, and in future they would be only producing the std cylinders.
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Refillable LPG cylinders and a Calor Lite update
By IAN HEWLETT
Posted on 04 April 2019
Calor began selling its Calor Lite lightweight gas cylinders back in 2006 but in 2017 it announced it was phasing out the product, in favour of a new style cylinder. Now however, a new lightweight cylinder is unlikely to be produced.Calor explains it has conducted research into whether it would be viable to manufacture a replacement for Calor Lite and has concluded there isn’t a great demand for it, especially in caravans.
The company says: “The growing popularity of fixed gas tanks and electric hook-ups is only likely to gather pace”, meaning fewer such cylinders will be needed in the future. The company is continuing to research other markets to see whether there is a requirement for a lightweight cylinder elsewhere, but at the moment this seems unlikely.
This is disappointing news for the many caravanners and others who prefer to camp off grid and like the practicality of the Lite cylinders. Club members have also contacted the Technical Help Desk because their car’s towball limit, caravan noseweight or payload restrictions mean they prefer to use the lighter gas cylinders.
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Alan
Interesting post and link. I am still a little unclear from the article as to whether Calor will continue to refill Calor Lite whilst they have usable cylinders? If they are willing to do that then they could be available for some time to come albeit in every decreasing numbers.
Sometimes the choice of whether you have exchange or refillable cylinders is not straightforward. The Calor Lite and the standard 6kgs Calor cylinder is the size that most UK manufacturers have used to fit into gas lockers. The likes of the old BP Gaslight and many refillable cylinders tend to have an increased girth which makes them more difficult to fit into a lot of gas lockers. Personally I could go back to the old heavy cylinder, not that I want to but it is an option. The rational used by Calor for not having a lightweight cylinder does not seem to make a lot of sense. Whilst a lot of motorhomes might well come with refillable gas tanks I would imagine that it was pretty rare in a caravan which is still Calor's major market segment in the leisure industry. Be interesting to see what the CMC reaction is?
David
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Back in 2011 we bought a Bailey which had a high ex factory noseweight and this prompted a move to the BP Gas Light cylinders which we continue to use.
The 10 kg size fits into the front locker and supply has never been an issue even after the change to ‘Flogas’ as the main supplier.
We did consider a move to Safefill but the sparse availability put us off and the info in another current thread re Autogas suggests that availability is reducing.
There are clearly fellow campers who use far more gas than we do, making refillable cylinders more attractive, but for us the Gas Light is an ideal mix of availability and price.
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As posted on another thread: I have never had any interest in calorlites as for me, personally, they are totally pointless. I am always on EHU when sited and over 120 nights away we use no more than 6kg. A 3.9kg propane bottle weighs around 10kg whilst a calorlite holds 6kg weighs 10.5kg and is bulkier to manoeuvre into the locker. Presumably because of being less popular they are not as common it would seem. Whichever I choose I would still carry two bottles. I have never considered them to be an advantage over the 3.9kg for those reasons.
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Not sure they will! I was surprised at how much detail the C&CC went into in their magazine which is usually not their strong point. If Clubs want to promote lighter cylinders what will they do to have them available on site, probably nothing? Perhaps the CMC pre-empted this decision by Calor a month or so ago by having an article of refillable cylinder, not something I have seen before.
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If Clubs want to promote lighter cylinders what will they do to have them available on site, probably nothing?
They already have lighter cylinders on site David. That is what I use. I have certainly seen Calorlite on sites as well but not sure what imut, if any, the club has in regard to gas refills supply on site.
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Alan
With respect you are probably in a relatively small minority of members using 3.9kg cylinders. If, which I suspect is the majority, use 6kg cylinders there is quite a weight saving between the Lite and standard. The 3.9kg cylinder is only lighter by its size, you could say the same about Camping Gaz 907 cylinders. Whilst we always have a hookup we do use gas to supplement the heating/hot water as we use our own facilities. We also use gas en route for the fridge if we stop off anywhere between sites so a smaller cylinder would not be as convenient for us and I suspect many others. The only time I have used the 3.9kg cylinder was when we had a boat and it was only used for cooking.
David
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I simply said David that light and manageable containers where available. Many caravanners that use main sites use very little gas and none when travelling or stopping off for the day unlike motorhomers perhaps.
As I said earlier I have no idea what input has into the supply of gas. One thing is likely the widespread availability of Calor on many sites, not just club sites, makes it my choice of refillables.
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We use Calorlite propane, admittedly in not huge amounts because we always hook up to EHU, but always carry two cylinders- one in use, and one spare. I regularly use the cooker (hob, grill & oven) in the caravan which, of course, runs on gas aside from one electric hotplate. I don’t want to be in the situation of a gas bottle running empty whilst cooking a meal. The only solution would be changing a bottle before it’s empty, but why waste gas you’ve paid for? I’ve read posts on alternative refillable systems with interest, but there just isn’t anywhere I can see that supplies, or has filling stations, in my local area. This, for us, is not viable. We’ll have to stick with the Calorlite for now and see how things go. Really disappointed that they aren’t now going to produce a new light cylinder.
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Maybe the answer is to allow one cylinder to run down to half full than switch to the other keeping the former as an emergency reserve? I am keeping my original Calorlight bottle for just that purpose to minimise the weight of the second bottle too. The other is back to the heavy weight version.
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