Calor to Flogas?
Today, 18:44
We need to reduce our noseweight and do not want to move weight behind the axle. We are trying to achieve 70kg noseweight, which is the max recommended noseweight for our caravan.
With our fully laden caravan with a full 6kg Calor gas bottle, we get 75kg, without it, we get 65kg. We are thinking we would like to switch to a 5kg bottle of Flogas Gaslight, which should weigh 8.5 kg rather than 17kg and hopefully help us achieve 70kg noseweight.
We realise that Flogas is more expensive but will not be using gas that much, we have a portable induction hob as well as a gas one and our only other use for gas is the Truma heater, but we do not intend to use that much either.
However, we would like to know that we can use either of these gas appliances if we need to sometimes.
What we can't figure out is whether the regulator and hose on our caravan needs any conversion for Flogas Gaslight. The Flogas website says it is a 27mm regulator which I understand Calor also uses, but I have also read that it is a different type to Calor. However, our regulator is attached to the front locker and then there is a hose to attach to the gas bottle.
Apologies here, but we are still figuring all of this out and have not been on our first trip yet, so any advice would be welcome.
Comments
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Have you tried looking for a smaller Calor bottle, I'm sure there is one smaller than the 6kg one. If you are not going to be using much gas it might be an alternative.
Sorry can't help with what type of fitting Flogas uses. We have Flogas at home but it a 1200 ltr tank.
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You already have the regulator, I use the Flogas bottle, the piccy might help you. If I remember rightly the Pigtail is a Butane type M20 fitting that fits.
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Have you looked at an alternative solution? Where is your battery situated? Swapping to a lithium battery, although not cheap initially, will save a substantial amount of weight and provide a better 123V power source.
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Thanks very much. So do we just need the adaptor, not a whole new pigtail? And any idea where we might get this from?
Is it this:
Or this:
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Thanks for all of your help. Been in touch with Flogas and they recommended this:
https://www.flogas.co.uk/product/27m...opane-hose-kit
Next problem:
Flogas tell me the bottom of the 5kg Gaslight bottle is flat, so the plastic bit that sticks up in the middle of this base will mean it can't stand in it. It is stuck to the floor and I really don't want to try pulling it off and damaging the floor.
Wondering about getting some marine plywood cut to size and making a little platform above it so it rests on and surrounds the existing base. Then we could screw it with brackets into the floor. Maybe also screw some kind of circular pieces to retain it, unless I can find a 5kg Gaslight compatible base to screw in to the ply.Also, is the hole in the existing base there for a reason? Would we need a hole in the ply too?
What do you think?0 -
Any exterior ply should do the job, don't worry about marine ply.
I'd put a similar size hole in the middle as it could well be a gas drop out/vent point. You usually find these inside the van, under sink area, behind gas fire, under seats etc, with a plastic grill on them.
Colin
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I’m surprised that the noseweight limitation is on the caravan not the car. Don’t know what caravan you have but I thought an Alko chassis had a 100kg limit?
The Gaslite cylinder is a great product, far better than Calor, and used to also be available from Homebase stores. Simple 27mm. clip-on connector, comfortable carry handles and ability to visually check the gas level.
Changing the battery to Lithium is not a simple option as the charger/control unit would probably have to be changed.
Many caravans have noseweight problems and the usual solution (although never recommended by the “experts”) is to shift weight to the back of the van. It seems a bit drastic to have to downsize the gas cylinder.
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I can't be sure from your picture but it looks as though the silver coloured nut connects the Calor POL (propane) adapter to your pigtail. If this is the case just remove the POL fitting and replace it with the 27mm clip on adapter mentioned above. I have been using mine this way for many rears and it also works fine with Le Cube gas bottes in France.
Depending on the size of the mound on the floor you might find that a piece of 1" thick polystyrene (the sort used for packing white goods) with a mound sized hole in the middle can support your flat bottomed gas bottle without any additional weight.
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Thanks everyone. Had a reorganise of the interior and front locker and have now managed to achieve 70kg noseweight which is what we were aiming for. We took everything out of the front locker apart from the spare wheel, gas bottle and waste water container and moved chocks, levelling blocks and other bits and pieces in tub trugs to the car boot.
Then inside we rearranged what was on the floor under the table with just pillows at the front and then canvas boxes with bed linen/duvet/towels and other denser stuff a bit further back. This all seems to have done the trick. So I think we are going to stick with this for now since we have a full 6kg Calor gas.
But having looked again at the base for the gas bottle, it seems like a 10kg Gaslight would fit in the base as it has the same diameter at the 6kg Calor gas and even if the bottom of the 10kg is flat it wouldn't matter.
So in the long term this might be a better option and I like the fact that it would be possible to see how much gas is in there easily. And the 10kg Flogas provides more gas with a lighter overall weight. As it reduces in weight while we use it we could start to move the bits and pieces back into the front locker since there is space, to maintain noseweight.
Regarding noseweight, the car manual has a maximum noseweight of 75kg and suggests being as close to that as possible, but also around 10% of trailer weight, which in our case would be 80kg if our overall weight is 800kg. However, the caravan manual says the noseweight should be 65 to 70kg. So from all of this we thought aiming for 70kg seemed like the best option.
We don't want to shift the weight to the back of the van as it already has a rear kitchen and washroom. The handbook recommends for our model to spread the weight across the floor of the van with the heaviest items close to the axle, which is what we have done predominantly. However, we have put a box of food under the bench on one side to balance out the weight of the battery under the other, at a point forward of the axle. We think the battery is contributing to the excess noseweight, which is why we thought removing items from the front locker rather than adding to the rear would be better.
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Yes. Check whether you have enough height in your locker to accommodate the top entry though. Bear in mind you will need space for the pigtail and its connection nut too.
If you can disconnect the Calor Propane adaptor (at the silver nut I mentioned previously) you won't need to buy another pigtail.
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If you are short on space above your gas bottle you could use one of these instead.
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