How much gas have I got left?
I have been caravanning for many years although not that often in recent ones so when I had my van serviced last year in preparation for staycations ahead the service engineer replaced my dual flow gas changeover compete with a gauge for a single one without a gauge because he said the rubber hose was beyond it's service life.Annoyingly it's impossible to just change the hose on the one I had.
So, the question was how much gas did I have in my two bottles which were both purchased many years ago, particularly important as we were heading off to far flung places in Scotland with little to no chance of getting a refill, especially with this years shortages.
Looking online I discovered that the metal ring around the neck of a Calor cylinder has the weight of the empty bottle imprinted on it. I's not obvious and rather stupidly it's in pounds and ounces when the gas is sold in kilos. Get the calculator out and you can work out the weight of the gas. However, if you look closely at the bottom of the cylinder it does have the weight stamped on it in kilos so it's much easier to deduct that when you weigh the whole bottle on your kitchen scales!
Maybe you knew that but in case you didn't you do now! It took me over 30 to find that out!!
How long X kilos of gas will last is of course is another question altogether depending on what you use it for but had I discovered this before setting off to Scotland I would have had less to worry about and not bothered buying microwaveable food just in case we ran out of gas.
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Thanks for the tip, Dave, about where to get the kilo weight of a cylinder. I've just been out and looked at my recently purchased bottle. Unfortunately I can't get anything stamped in the base of the bottle to equate with the weight shown on the neck ring. This ring shows 18 lbs 12 ounces which converts to 8.5 kg. Although the bottle is 7 kg of butane the only figure that seems to appear on the bottle is "14.5 Litres". Where does that come into the equation? The only other number, which isn't identified, is the number 8 shown in a small circle. There is another circle about 25mm away but this has nothing in it at all. Looking at my 6kg Propane bottle, that is similar and with the same "14.5 Litres" stamped into the base. The neck ring shows 19 lbs 0 ounces. Can you throw any further light on what the figures and letters actually mean?
I've always relied on the weight as shown on the neck ring and deduct this from the total weight when I weigh the bottle on my bathroom scales. I do this after each trip which gives me a pretty good indication of gas used. It is usually just about 0.5kg per week. Although we don't use the water heater or fridge on gas we do a fair amount of cooking including using the oven. Over the many years this figure of 0.5 kg has seemed reliable.
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The 6kg Calor light bottles I have been using have a nice little guage that shows how much gas you have left, not sure how accurate it is. As i have provision for 2 cylinders and 1 cylinder normally lasts 12 months or more I dont usually worry about it.
We have a Remoska that we use mostly instead of the gas oven which seems to take forever to heat up. The Remoska runs of electric so is much more efficient than the gas oven, expensive to buy but much more convenient.
Never used the fridge on gas or the water heater, service engineer always checks them so that is ok for me.
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Apologies...my info is not 100% accurate!
The empty cylinder weight is shown at the bottom of my 6kg propane but not on the 19kg or 15kg Butane with a snap on connector.
It's also shown on the one 6kg propane "lite" bottle I have and that does have an integral gauge. The cylinder is so light in comparison to the full on steel one that I was a doubtful it worked ...it's one of the original ones so that must put it at around 10 years old perhaps? I really haven't a clue. My original lite was subjected to a recall as they were known to be a leak hazard I believe and this was the replacement so you can understand me suspicions!
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Get yourself a "Safefill" refillable and you can check the gas level by looking through the translucent cylinder. Gauges are notoriously inaccurate. Gas is cheaper than Calor's rip-off prices as well. About ten refills and the cylinder has paid for itself.
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Hi Cyber,
Great idea.......................then you can worry about where you will fill up rather than how much gas you have left!!
if I got a Safefill I would need to put something in my will about the 10 refills as I doubt I will be around to do so!
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