Calor vs Flogas / Gaslight (1 Viewer)

[interbear]

Looking for some advice please.

The campervan we are considering purchasing has a gas locker fitted out to take 2x 6kg gas bottles, with a fitted butane/propane regulator and propane hose. Researching gas options and it looks like the obvious answer is the standard Calor 6kg propane bottles, which I can get from a local supplier. However, I’ve also found that Flogas do similar 6kg propane bottles and also do Gaslight bottles in either 5kg or 10kg. Initial queries:

1) Any difference between the Calor and Flogas 6kg propane bottles that I should be aware of? I’m assuming the gas itself is exactly the same. Do they use the same regulator / hose?

2) The Flogas Gaslight bottles look ideal to me. Bit pricier but I like the fact they are lighter and also translucent so you can see the volume of gas that remains. However, I’m not sure if they would fit (my assumption is that the 5kg might fit but the 10kg would not) and also unsure if the regulator / hose is the same as the Calor 6kg propane bottles use. So, any advice from Flogas Gaslight users appreciated too.

Not at this point interested in refillables such as Gaslow, might look at that later if our trips become longer and more frequent. For now, the exchange bottles will be fine.

Thanks.

 

[Lenny HB]

Calor is the more universal as you can get it practically anywhere in the UK. 6kg is not much gas if you get low you might have a problem finding Flogas or Gaslight. Calor can be found at garages, hardware stores, builders merchants, garden centres & camping sites etc.
If you are going abroad none of these bottles are available outside of the UK.

 

[starquake]

1) No, you may consider usng both as we do (we have 1 6kg calor, 1 6kg Flo. ) Same regulator connector. The advantage is if Calor have suppply issues you still can get Flo refills and vice versa.

Worth noting Flo refills are about £3 more at current time.

The LIGHT bottles (some) use a different regulator, you want the 6kg metal ones.

 

[starquake]

Should also add Flogas do a 11kg which DOES fit in many lockers, it's only slightly bigger than the 6kg metal propane dimensionally. Fits in many manufacturers lockers as 11kg is a standard size across in EU and the flogas 11kg meets the EU size specification.

The 10kg "light" however we can only fit ONE of in our locker when test fitted (as it's significantly wider bottle), where we can fit 2x11kg of the non-light if we chose to do so.

If you go to a flogas depot, locally they are quite friendly and let us "test fit" various bottles until we found we wanted the 6kg, as the 11kg would be MUCH more difficult to swap due to weight (despite fitting). We will go 11kg when we go refillable in future, but not when we need to lug bottles in/out.

 

[starquake]

Ref; availability and Lenny HB point. Flogas in suffolk at least is quite often also sold at Garage forecourts, more often in fact than Calor around here, but theres often a Calor depot literally next door. The local BP does Flogas with a Calor dealership in the motorbike store literally across the road. The Calor dealership has not had a single 6kg for refill in 12 months, but lukcily another garage within 10 miles has loads of stock and is getting them regularly. Calor supply varies on the individual garages use of the bottles, and the one 10 miles away (near Bury st edmunds) has the 6kg as their most popular bottle so they always have 20+ in stock.

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[Shipps]

We have both Calor and flogas bottles in our van and the 6kg bottle use the same connector

 

[Jev88]

Calor were exceptionally crap at supplying the leisure market all through lockdown and Flogas rubbed their hands with glee at least locally (Peterborough) and did a good job of keeping supplies up.
Calor announced dropping the small 4.5Kg bottles overnight and it took a huge backlash for them to reverse that decision.
Leaves a very bad taste in the mouth that Calor appears to not want leisure vehicle business?
My local Flogas depot are super friendly and patient when I 3-point turn my RV up to their refill pump and load up 250 litres

 

[PlacidoD]

Is your van to be delivered with a gas bottle? If not I suggest that you reconsider refillable. I bought my van in April and started out intending to use Calor propane but given the universality of availability in the UK and Europe I have gone for a SafeFill bottle which I can refill at my local Morrisons PFS and I have already identified refill points as far south as Lake Como for my travels later in the year.

Cost (for an 11 kg bottle) is roughly double that of an initial purchase of Calor (OK for an empty bottle but filling cost are buttons!). However used bottles are available for both on Ebay and elsewhere.

If you have no ambition to cross the Channel to Europe there is less incentive to go with a SafeFill or the like but if it is a "maybe next year" it makes sense as an investment rather than worry about running out abroad especially if you are limited to smaller bottles. Not looking at refillables now but purchasing later will add to your overall cost.

Hope that helps? If not ignore me!!!

Chris

 

[Broadway]

I wouldn’t discount a refillable system. I’ve just had 2 x 11kg Gaslow fitted by Autogas 2000 Leisure at Carlton Miniott near Thirsk. They did a first class job. They also do 6kg cylinders and underslung tanks.
As others have said, no lugging bottles about, easy to fill, and no need to change bottles if you travel to Europe.

 

[Guigsy]

Normally the size limit in lockers is the diameter, not the height. 6kg Calor bottles are the same width as 11kg Gaslow refillables. European vans are often designed for the 11kg size.

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[oldiesontour]

Locally forecourts seem to be giving up calor and replacing with flogas As advised above the initial purchase of 2 calor or Flo would go most of the way to a refillable which is about a third of the price to refill ,can be topped up anytime, doesn't have to be lugged in and out,can be filled anywhere in Europe and beyond.
If you are going calor route then 1 of each Flo and calor

 

[starquake]

We are moving to a Gaslow 2x11kg as above moment we do our first EU (long) trip which will be 2025. We're actually running down the bottles now in preparation for it.

Worth noting you a Gaslow bottles are rated for 10 years service so effectively you do have do divide the purchae price by 10 to get annual costs of bottles + refill costs to do a comparison.

We held off getting the Gaslow at start (we already had the 6kg bottles from calor and flo (one came with van)) as effecively 2xrefill costs per year was working out cheaper. If you NEED to buy the initial Calor or Flo, it's probably cheaper overall to use Gaslow.

Also if you find you need 3 refills a year, Gaslow works out cheaper in effect. The issue is really how much you will use your van, as cooking/bbqing the bottles (6kg) last near 6 months in our experience. However if you winter motorhome, you can use 6kg in a 4 day cold spell with heating.

 

[Lenny HB]

Also if you find you need 3 refills a year, Gaslow works out cheaper in effect. The issue is really how much you will use your van, as cooking/bbqing the bottles (6kg) last near 6 months in our experience

Obviously a very low user, we use a 14kg bottle in 15 days that is mainly for hot water for morning shower & running the fridge & cooking, plus a bit of heating.

 

[starquake]

Also if you don't have bottles PLEASE check ebay and gumtree and local facbook market groups as you'll probably pick up a 6kg empty for "little" money where a first bottle fee from calor or flo is ... £50 or so.

 

[starquake]

Obviously a very low user, we use a 14kg bottle in 15 days that is mainly for hot water for morning shower & running the fridge & cooking, plus a bit of heating.

Well we doing another 5 day off grid starting today ... so we may reevaluate, as we've had 10 days off grid on this bottle so far. But we do have the smaller fridge which uses half the gas I believe (ie's 240g a day I believe).

I think the qeustion Lenny HB to the OP is more how many days off grid do you expect as running fridge (small) on gas is 250g a day, large is 500g a day in summer. So that can be worked out from the 6kg gas bottle easily l)

Ie, I suspect I'll be on a 3rd bottle in 12 months this weekend if I've calculated the gas use right .

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[interbear]

Thanks for the advice so far folks, much appreciated.

We will use the gas for cooking on the hob and external bbq point, plus hot water and heating in the van when off grid. However, the vast majority of our trips are to campsites with EHU so the hot water and heating can be run on electric. The fridge is a simple Dometic compressor fridge that does not use gas.

Hence why I think that the usual exchangeable Calor / Flogas bottles should last us a while.

For context, we’ve had our VW Transporter based campervan for 2 years and are still using the Camping Gaz 907 butane bottle that came with it. It’s only used for cooking / external BBQ as the current van has a diesel heater. So as you can see, we don’t use a lot of gas. It’ll no doubt increase with more frequent trips and with hot water / heating off grid. I will take a closer look at some of the refillable options based on advice here, but honestly, 2x 6kg propane seems a lot given our likely usage. Our longest trips to Europe tend to be 2-3 weeks in France / Spain and mostly on campsites so I also think that the gas should be more than sufficient for that type of trip without having to worry about running out.

 

[starquake]

Our longest trips to Europe tend to be 2-3 weeks in France / Spain and mostly on campsites so I also think that the gas should be more than sufficient for that type of trip without having to worry about running out.

Just remember a lot of EHU abroad is 6A only, so will cover running fridge, but probably won't cope with water and heat (and that is the main user of gas). We emptied a full 6kg in 4 days when we were "testing" that out in -5 conditions.

Really with a campervan the question is winter camping -> if you going to EU when it's cold, you may need refillable. If you don't plan winter you as you say will use a tiny amount on your use in all likelihood. Using an external BBQ the use is calulatable from the burner size, I think a cadac uses about 150g an hour (from memory).

Do remember parts of EU can be very cold overnight even in summer too (Mountain ranges) -> so it's not quite as simple as summer is fine too, it's where you go!

Should add our friends done a 3 week tour with 2x6kg jut fine in south of France in summer. So it does work for these uses.

 

[interbear]

Just remember a lot of EHU abroad is 6A only, so will cover running fridge, but probably won't cope with water and heat (and that is the main user of gas). We emptied a full 6kg in 4 days when we were "testing" that out in -5 conditions.

Really with a campervan the question is winter camping -> if you going to EU when it's cold, you may need refillable. If you don't plan winter you as you say will use a tiny amount on your use in all likelihood. Using an external BBQ the use is calulatable from the burner size, I think a cadac uses about 150g an hour (from memory).

Do remember parts of EU can be very cold overnight even in summer too (Mountain ranges) -> so it's not quite as simple as summer is fine too, it's where you go!

Should add our friends done a 3 week tour with 2x6kg jut fine in south of France in summer. So it does work for these uses.

Good advice, thanks. Our winter trips tend to be UK campsites for weekends. France / Spain is summer trips when I take holidays from work.

 

[Lenny HB]

Well we doing another 5 day off grid starting today ... so we may reevaluate, as we've had 10 days off grid on this bottle so far. But we do have the smaller fridge which uses half the gas I believe (ie's 240g a day I believe).

Our large fridge/freezer eats gas, 1 Lt (½kg a day), in upto 150 nights a year we might use EHU for one or two nights, we rarely use sites.

 

[Pausim]

We have recently taken delivery of our Malibu Van. Ours has room for 2 x 11kg bottles but the ones with a lower bed can only take 2 x 5kg bottles. Most Campervans now have 12V compressor fridges which removes a big user of gas from the equation. I have to say we are very pleased with our compressor fridge, much quicker to cool down and no complaints about the noise. Initially we thought we would revert to Calor or Flo bottles but in the end bought a 10kg Safefill and have no regrets. The mark up on exchange bottles seems to get even more pronounced with small ones.

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[VXman]

I use one refillable and one gas light which are easily available at Homebase. Most of the time I use the refillable (Gas low) and the gaslight for emergencies. Requires different hose for each but same regulation. No hassle as I don't need to change very often as the refillable is nearly always full.