How much gas will I use? (1 Viewer)

[peterc10]

We are off in a couple of weeks for a 4 week trip through France and into Spain. We will probably using Aires for some of the time, which will be a new experience for us. That will probably mean we will be relying on gas, rather than the EHU, for heating as well as cooking and I am trying to calculate roughly how much gas we may need.

So any ideas please as to how much gas is needed for overnight in March in France for heating, bearing in mind my wife has poor circulation and we like to keep the van quite warm (maybe 21C while we are awake and 18C when asleep). I know it is like asking how long is a piece of string, but will be happy with a range of possible values. Also happy to hear what you use and in what circumstances. Our motorhome is a 2008 Adria coachbuilt with the usual insulation.

At the moment I have two 6Kg calors. I will need to change one before I go so could swap it for a 13kg one, but would prefer to retain the lighter 6kg if I can get away with it. But I am trying to find out whether a total of 12kg or 19kg be enough. I don't want to try to get one in France or Spain.

Many thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[Wildman]

With the heating on all night 13kg will not be enough for a month. The fridge and cooker will probably use that as well An extra duvet does the job much more efficiently. The alternative is to get a refillable bottle or even a gas refill adapter (oh shock horror).

 

[flatpackchicken]

Hi, you may need 2 x 11kg bottles for a month for heating as well, and then that may not be enough and you cannot refill English bottles abroad, so either be very carefull on your usage of gas or get a lpg refillable system fitted like the Alugas system, so you can fill up at any gge that sells LPG as well anywhere in the world, but expensive to start with but takes all the frustration and aggravation out of your gas supply, also have the very light 11kg bottles fitted as well, helps with the payload, Regards Garry Flatpackchicken

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[Minxy]

I doubt that you'll have enough for the 4 weeks, especially at this time of year using it for heating too.

I'd suggest seriously considering getting a single Gas-it bottle and taking it away with you along with one of your 6kg ones (just to be safe until you get used to remembering to top the Gas-it one up!). The cost of a 11kg Gas-it bottle with filler will be in the region of £160 or so and is very easy to fit, you'll probably also need the filler adaptor for the French and Spanish pumps, but again not a massive cost for these. Whilst it may seem a lot of outlay, once you have it you won't have to worry about running out abroad now, or in future years.

The only other realistic alternative is to buy an exchange bottle in France and/or Spain and use that whilst there and keep it so that when you visit again in the future you can exchange it when it runs out, you should obviously take one Calor bottle too so that you can use that on your way there. This would be a cheaper option but obviously might not be ideal if you have a Spanish bottle and need to exchange it in France ... as you won't be able to!

 

[DavidG58]

I agree with Wildman, although you will have 19 not 13kg, still probably not enough, but this opens my biggest concern of medium term European travel without converting to refillables

We have room and payload to allow us to carry a spare 13kg, and have a 6 and 13 in the gas locker

We like to be warm and would run around your temperatures where possible, but would tend to use sites to allow us use of EHU (we have electric heating) and the benefit of internet access

We have also only done 21 days so far, partly due to my fear of running out of gas, but have also so far coped with the 2 cylinders in the gas box.

However as you started off by saying how long is a piece of string, Spain should be much warmer than France but then mountains in Spain will be colder than French Riviera

This has not helped you much I guess but reminded me of my concerns when I want to do the same as you

Good luck

 

[peterc10]

Thanks for all of your contributions. Largely confirming what I feared. However I maybe should have added a bit more info.

Whilst I am going to be away for about 4 weeks at least half of that time I will be on EHU, so for that time gas will only be needed for cooking, and even then we will be going out to eat quite a bit. We will be mainly using Aires through France, because there are few sites open, and the first bit of Spain.

I don't really fancy having another bottle - I am at my weight limit for the garage as it is. And even if I did which would it be - Spain or France?

I have looked at Gasit's refill. If I was going to do that I would probably fit a 6Kg one and fill it more often. Nothing to do with cost, more to do with weight. I looked at Alugas but was put off by their confusing website. Can't find anything as simple as the price for a one bottle kit with everything including the in-locker filler that Gasit offer.

And we are heading off for the spring sun so will be aiming for the Med coast of Spain. The only mountains will be the Massif Central, and we will try to get over those in a day.

Any further thoughts on this new info would be welcome.

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[funflair]

The quicker you get to Spain the better we are at 19 degrees inside this morning at 8am no heating on and skylights and windows open.

Nice aire with free electric just South of Angouleme at Nersac.

Martin

 

[Scattycat]

Hi, when we did a France, Spain, Portugal trip 2 years ago.
Bearing in mind that it was a lot colder then than it is now, when we left it was -13 and we still had unmelted snow on the roof of the van by the time we got to Bordeaux.

We were away for 6 weeks and we live a few days further south than you.

We had about 10 days in camp sites but the rest of the time we were without electricity.

Our gas consumption with the heating, cooking, fridge/freezer was almost 3x 13 kg bottles.

Taking 2 full bottles with us I thought that would be enough. We ended up buying a Spanish bottle and regulator and adapting it to fit our pipe work.

For our long winter trips outside of France now we have 2x13kg bottles in the gas locker plus a spare full one in the garage

 

[Carol]

When we are travelling to make the cup of tea or dinner we carry with us a single burner gas hob and take a supply of small gas canisters switch us, you can get a set for about £12 anywhere in the UK, you would be surprised how much gas this saves. We have been away since the 28th Dec and still have gas left we carried a 13 and a 6 Calor Propane.

Forgot to add we have only been on ehu 13 nights, as said a extra quilt instead of heating.

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[JeanLuc]

If weight is an issue, look at Alugas. I think Dave Newell still installs them, or if you fancy a longer trip, Autogas in Thirsk are, I think, the importers. Either fitter is very helpful and I recommend a phone call for some expert advice.

http://www.davenewell.co.uk/

http://www.autogasleisure.co.uk/

 

[peterc10]

If weight is an issue, look at Alugas. I think Dave Newell still installs them, or if you fancy a longer trip, Autogas in Thirsk are, I think, the importers. Either fitter is very helpful and I recommend a phone call for some expert advice.

http://www.davenewell.co.uk/

http://www.autogasleisure.co.uk/

Thanks but we live in Kent and have not got time to get to these people before leaving for France. If I were to fit a system it would be a single bottle with a filler point in the gas locker. Alugas do not appear to do an "all-in" kit like Gasit do, and I have had another look at their website and am still a bit confused as to what I need. However it appears to be considerably more expensive than Gasit. Can anybody tell me what I would need?

 

[Heyupluv]

How long is a piece of string ....springs to mind....
it all depends on
What Motorhome you have....
How old is it.....
What type of heating you have...blow heating or Alde wet heating..
How well is your motorhome insulated...e.g.: winterised or not..double floor or single.
What time of the year you will be camping ...
What part of France you are going to...
Do you use the heating a lot...are you cold people and like to be warm..
Or are the out door type that go out for lots of walks and keep well wrapped up...
Do you have the heating on all night...and maybe most or some of the day..
Do you do a lot of cooking in the van or just outside using your gas from the main bottles..
Or do you eat out a lot...
Also at what percentage of Aires will you use..to campsite with EHUP...
Then there is the Fridge and freezer....do you keep them well stocked or nearly empty..
How many people will there be in the Motorhome...Showers,..washing , and washing up,
Do you use a washing machine in the motorhome ...like we do.
What I am trying to say ...There are many factors to add into the equation.
Our present Motorhome has Alde wet heating...and we do a lot of cooking in and just outside the motorhome on gas...we have two showers a day...fridge and freezer well stocked.. double floor.....we only use minimal heating and not on through the night, as we have a Labrador that is in and out most of the day very little heating is used through the day...now we get through a 11kg bottle of refillable gas in 7 days on the present Motorhome...
Our previous motorhome a 11kg would last around 1 month on Truma hot air heating....although the motorhome was not as warm all round like the Alde wet under floor and radiator heating...
if you have / carry a butane tail pipe...meaning the nut exterior type these will fit onto a French Propane bottle similar to this one

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[peterc10]

As said in my original question it is a 2008 Adria Coachbuilt with normal insulation and no double floor. 2 of us in it and my wife is a cold morsel so we keep it reasonably warm and keep the heating on all night, but at a lower temperature. We have blown air heating and each shower once per day. Heading South through France and into Spain. Don't do lots of walks. Well stocked fridge no washing machine. Probably one cooked meal a day (although I may want to heat up some croissants in the oven as well!

Think that covers it all!

 

[Heyupluv]

As said in my original question it is a 2008 Adria Coachbuilt with normal insulation and no double floor. 2 of us in it and my wife is a cold morsel so we keep it reasonably warm and keep the heating on all night, but at a lower temperature. We have blown air heating and each shower once per day. Heading South through France and into Spain. Don't do lots of walks. Well stocked fridge no washing machine. Probably one cooked meal a day (although I may want to heat up some croissants in the oven as well!

Think that covers it all!

I would think if you say a month....of camping on Mixed Aires & campsites.

What do get out of a bottle in the UK of continous camping....not a week end here and there

 

[peterc10]

What do get out of a bottle in the UK of continous camping....not a week end here and there

I don't know, because as I said at the beginning I am relative newbie and this is my first time using it without EHU. That is why I was asking what others used.

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[JeanLuc]

Thanks but we live in Kent and have not got time to get to these people before leaving for France. If I were to fit a system it would be a single bottle with a filler point in the gas locker. Alugas do not appear to do an "all-in" kit like Gasit do, and I have had another look at their website and am still a bit confused as to what I need. However it appears to be considerably more expensive than Gasit. Can anybody tell me what I would need?

Since you are having some difficulty in working out what your require, might I suggest that it would be best to discuss your needs with an installer. The Gasit 'in-locker' system requires the installation of a filler pipe and nozzle so there is a bit of DIY work to do. If you are in any doubt, it might be best to get someone to do it. You have two Funster dealers near to you that may be able to help. Neither supplies Gasit so far as I know but they do supply Gaslow and offer a Funster discount. I would try John Cross at Robertsbridge in East Sussex, or Vanbitz. The latter are in Somerset, but they have just set up a mobile service run by Eddie's son James, and he is based somewhere near Brighton I think. If you go down the refillable route, don't forget thet you will need some adapters for use abroad. In the case of the full Gaslow kit, these are included.

http://www.johnscross.co.uk/
Link Removed

 

[Minxy]

I have looked at Gasit's refill. If I was going to do that I would probably fit a 6Kg one and fill it more often. Nothing to do with cost, more to do with weight. I looked at Alugas but was put off by their confusing website. Can't find anything as simple as the price for a one bottle kit with everything including the in-locker filler that Gasit offer.

The 6kg empty weighs 7kg, the 11kg empty weighs 10.7kg, so only 3.7 kg more for the bigger bottle (less than 4 bags of sugar!) and even allowing for the extra weight of gas (5kg) that's only 8.7kg more than a 6kg system ... if you are THAT short on payload that 8.7kg makes a difference then I would be very worried!

A Gas-it 6kg bottle kit (with in-locker fill point) is £147.22, an 11kg kit is £161.23, so for an extra £14.01 you get nearly twice the bottle capacity, meaning less refills needed. The only other things you would need are:

French adaptor: £5.90
Spanish adaptor: £9.32
Acme: £5.90 (may NOT need this)
Connection pipe to run from the bottle to your regulator: £10 max

As for Alugas, yes it will be quite a bit more expensive and again, unless payload is a MAJOR problem I can't see the point in going for it. An Alugas 11kg bottle weighs approx 6.3kg (empty) compared to 10.7kg for a Gas-it equivalent so you are only saving 4.3kg and as you don't 'lug' the bottles about as you would exchange ones I can never really see the point!

From what you've said you won't be able to take enough Calor gas to meet your needs, so it's either faffing about with 'local' bottles or getting a refillable and not having the worry.

 

[SoapyTutti]

We are off in a couple of weeks for a 4 week trip through France and into Spain. We will probably using Aires for some of the time, which will be a new experience for us. That will probably mean we will be relying on gas, rather than the EHU, for heating as well as cooking and I am trying to calculate roughly how much gas we may need.

So any ideas please as to how much gas is needed for overnight in March in France for heating, bearing in mind my wife has poor circulation and we like to keep the van quite warm (maybe 21C while we are awake and 18C when asleep). I know it is like asking how long is a piece of string, but will be happy with a range of possible values. Also happy to hear what you use and in what circumstances. Our motorhome is a 2008 Adria coachbuilt with the usual insulation.

At the moment I have two 6Kg calors. I will need to change one before I go so could swap it for a 13kg one, but would prefer to retain the lighter 6kg if I can get away with it. But I am trying to find out whether a total of 12kg or 19kg be enough. I don't want to try to get one in France or Spain.

Many thanks for any help you can give me.

Taking into account your personal circumstances why don't you invest in the gaslow system 2 bottles and lots of GPL autogas all over France and its cheap

we are down in Spain at the moment for Winter to try and give you an idea we had the heating on most days cooking and topped up every 4 to 6 weeks

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[Allanm]

We just came back from 15 nights in France. We spent 12 of those nights in Aires and used an EHU for 4 nights, so we used exclusively our own power for 11 nights. Our van is very well insulated.
We use gas to cook, run the domestic size fridge / freezer, blown air heating and hot water. We like our comfort too with similar temps to the ones you quoted.
Travelling through France to the Med and back, we experienced nights as cold as -3˚C and as warm as 6˚C. We cooked on gas every night using the oven and gas hob and every morning we used two rings to make coffee ( percolator and milk) and occasionally used the grill. Water was heated all the time. Of course the gas is only in use when stationary and when we were on EHU we used Elec and Gas to heat / warm water.

We started with a full tank of gas ( 22 litres using an onboard Gaslow system) we topped up once with about 11 litres and we have half a tank left.

By my reckoning, we used about 20 litres of gas over the two weeks, which was less to our last trip in the late summer! ( we have excluded a few draughts since then......)

Not sure the litre to KG conversion but I think our 22 litre tank is roughly equivalent to a 13kg tank. ( probably)

Hope this helps a little.

Allan

 

[Larby]

Had the same predicament my 1st year. In the summer fridge and hot water lasted 9 days on Calor 6kg in 2012, only went for 12 days.
Last year after doing research I found that the 4.5kg Calor Butane) has a 21.8 LH thread, so does the French bottle from Intermarche.:thumb:
I paid €19.90 for 10kgs and €1 deposit on bottle
Had taken 1 Calor for BBQ and to cover when French bottle ran out.
Intermarche can be found everywhere.
So I took pig-tail to suit, so when I got to Calais got bottle and connected it up. Job done but it took a lot of faith as I was to be there for 4 weeks!
The OH would not have been happy with cold shower and warm fridge.
Bought another on way home to use in UK as much cheaper than Calor then will have 2 for this year:thumb:

 

[Heyupluv]

We just came back from 15 nights in France. We spent 12 of those nights in Aires and used an EHU for 4 nights, so we used exclusively our own power for 11 nights. Our van is very well insulated.
We use gas to cook, run the domestic size fridge / freezer, blown air heating and hot water. We like our comfort too with similar temps to the ones you quoted.
Travelling through France to the Med and back, we experienced nights as cold as -3˚C and as warm as 6˚C. We cooked on gas every night using the oven and gas hob and every morning we used two rings to make coffee ( percolator and milk) and occasionally used the grill. Water was heated all the time. Of course the gas is only in use when stationary and when we were on EHU we used Elec and Gas to heat / warm water.

We started with a full tank of gas ( 22 litres using an onboard Gaslow system) we topped up once with about 11 litres and we have half a tank left.

By my reckoning, we used about 20 litres of gas over the two weeks, which was less to our last trip in the late summer! ( we have excluded a few draughts since then......)

Not sure the litre to KG conversion but I think our 22 litre tank is roughly equivalent to a 13kg tank. ( probably)

Hope this helps a little.

Allan

22ltr of LPG gas = 11kg...(2 ltr of lpg= 1kg is near enough) .. (Cylinder Kg x 1.957 = Litres)

We have alugas.. http://autogasleisure.co.uk/gasbottle_alu.html and well pleased...we have 2 x 11kg bottles, so the weight plays a big factor and is a big saving on the metal type bottles when a lot of motorhomes have so little payload to play with.

Metal type refillable bottles
Gaslo,......Gasit and the german green bottle one,

https://www.gasfachfrau.eu/en/product-details/product/id299.html

http://www.gasit.co.uk/index.php?_a=category&cat_id=2

http://www.gaslowdirect.com/

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[Rapide561]

Gas

Hi

I wrote this article a while ago listed a lot of consumption figures for appliances. The fridge is a bit thirsty!

Russell

Gas consumption

 

[Boredrider]

Alugas price

To give you an idea on price, we had a single 11kg Alugas, plus the remote fill kit supplied and fitted in December 2013 by Autogas NW - it cost £325 plus another £20ish for the adapters. I chose this solution because I wanted space in the gas locker for a foreign bottle, in case of non-availability of LPG.

We have been away since having the system fitted, in France, Spain and Morocco. The Alugas took 21 litres on first fill. In about 30 days in UK, France and Spain, we used about 19 Litres, departing for Morocco with the Alugas full.

There is no LPG in Morocco, so once the Alugas cylinder was down to below 50% full I bought a local Butane cylinder and regulator (no Propane in Morocco either) for 210Dh - about £16 - and used that for the rest of our time there. Now back in Spain, and on LPG again. It really couldn't be easier!

 

[peterc10]

Thanks to everybody who contributed.

I have decided to go for a single 11kg Gasfit refillable cylinder complete with their locker fill kit. It looks very easy to fit and is much cheaper than the Alugas one. I will keep my other 6Kg calor as back up, but I envisage that it will rarely be used.

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