LPG (1 Viewer)

[PeteH]

Hi. I think some are misunderstanding my Post. I am, having had 3 American R-V`s, well aware of the "convenience" Factor. But in my case the installation came with the Vehicle. What I was intrigued by, is the Cost/Benefit verses Payback time?, of Retrofitting. So Is the Cost of the Fill, In Pence/Kg or Litre. substantially cheaper than (say) Calor. I know 10yrs ago I was paying around 25ish Pence/Litre. I also have recently paid as much as £24 for an Exchange Calor. At a conversion Factor of 1.96. then I make a 6Kg cost Almost £2 / litre. As opposed to 66p/litre. (to-days published price) Which would make a break even (on a £400 installation cost) @ approx 24 Calor Refills?.

Most of my Current gas use, is during Festivals, I Marshall 2 or 3 per year, and probably change a Bottle during each one. I used 2 for the "Scottish Safari" in May/June (it was wet and cold!). However I also use about 50% Argas Cylinders too. Which at £14.61, are substantially more cost effective than Calor but not as commonly available. Factoring That in @ aprox 99p/litre Makes the Break even (for me) at around 34 Bottles. So at between 6 and 7 Refills per year. Something in excess of 5 years to break even?.

 

[Minxy]

@PeteH these were my comments back in September 2015 when asked about 'payback':

https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/thank-you-gas-it.116412/page-2#post-1563321

Since 2009 when we installed our single 11kg Gaslow at a cost of £240 we've put in just shy of 350 litres of LPG at a cost of approx £236 making a total outlay for cylinders/gas of £478. If instead we'd used a Calor 13kg cylinder for some and 7kg for others (where the gas locker wouldn't take the larger one) the cost comes out at around £481, so we're just over 'break even' point [6 years] - that's assuming though that we'd been able to use the gas in the Calor cylinders totally and not leave any in them when exchanging it which would be difficult, it also doesn't take into account how we'd get Calor cylinders gas abroad!

However in order to extend the period between fills and be able to have more gas due to our going to Spain/Portugal where gas isn't quite so available as it is in France etc), I've now added a brand new 6kg R67 Gaslow cylinder which cost £50 (absolute bargain!) and connecting pipework costing around £27, making £77 in total, so will need to recoup the extra system cost to get to break even again, roughly another 100 litres of LPG will get us to that point. On our last 6 week trip we used 34 litres of gas so after another of our longer trips we'll be at break even again.

I'll point out though that the reason we went for the system wasn't due to the cost saving - as you can see it's taken a fair bit of time to get the break even! It was for several reasons:

• the convenience of not having to keep messing about with exchanging gas bottles;
• not having to have a spare full Calor 13kg at home to put in when going away for any length of time (to save giving gas back to Calor if the first cylinder wasn't completely empty!);
• not worrying about running out of gas especially abroad

When we changed in 2010 to a MH which only took 1 cylinder in it's gas locker it became even more of a necessity to have a refillable system as we were then going abroad for longer periods of time which meant that a single Calor 13kg might not have proved sufficient, especially if the weather turned and we needed to use it for heating.
In a nutshell, its got to be the best MH specific piece of kit we've ever had in our MHs/campers and something I'd have again without question, the fact that Gas-It are now on the scene so that the single 11kg cylinder system is even cheaper than we paid IMV makes it a no brainer for anyone who actively uses their MH/camper and wants to take a lot of the worry out of running out of gas.​

 

[MitchandJenny]

Best modification I did to our van. Gas-it 2 x 13kg bottles.
Swapped it from our old van, which I had originally fitted it to, to our new one.
Brilliant.
Mitch.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[PeteH]

@PeteH these were my comments back in September 2015 when asked about 'payback':

https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/thank-you-gas-it.116412/page-2#post-1563321

Since 2009 when we installed our single 11kg Gaslow at a cost of £240 we've put in just shy of 350 litres of LPG at a cost of approx £236 making a total outlay for cylinders/gas of £478. If instead we'd used a Calor 13kg cylinder for some and 7kg for others (where the gas locker wouldn't take the larger one) the cost comes out at around £481, so we're just over 'break even' point [6 years] - that's assuming though that we'd been able to use the gas in the Calor cylinders totally and not leave any in them when exchanging it which would be difficult, it also doesn't take into account how we'd get Calor cylinders gas abroad!

However in order to extend the period between fills and be able to have more gas due to our going to Spain/Portugal where gas isn't quite so available as it is in France etc), I've now added a brand new 6kg R67 Gaslow cylinder which cost £50 (absolute bargain!) and connecting pipework costing around £27, making £77 in total, so will need to recoup the extra system cost to get to break even again, roughly another 100 litres of LPG will get us to that point. On our last 6 week trip we used 34 litres of gas so after another of our longer trips we'll be at break even again.

I'll point out though that the reason we went for the system wasn't due to the cost saving - as you can see it's taken a fair bit of time to get the break even! It was for several reasons:

• the convenience of not having to keep messing about with exchanging gas bottles;
• not having to have a spare full Calor 13kg at home to put in when going away for any length of time (to save giving gas back to Calor if the first cylinder wasn't completely empty!);
• not worrying about running out of gas especially abroad

When we changed in 2010 to a MH which only took 1 cylinder in it's gas locker it became even more of a necessity to have a refillable system as we were then going abroad for longer periods of time which meant that a single Calor 13kg might not have proved sufficient, especially if the weather turned and we needed to use it for heating.
In a nutshell, its got to be the best MH specific piece of kit we've ever had in our MHs/campers and something I'd have again without question, the fact that Gas-It are now on the scene so that the single 11kg cylinder system is even cheaper than we paid IMV makes it a no brainer for anyone who actively uses their MH/camper and wants to take a lot of the worry out of running out of gas.​

Yes, It`s pretty much what I expected, The payback is a long term thing, unless maybe for "full-timers". So most will go for it for the Convenience. It is many ways like Solar, The up front cost is expensive, the benefits are marginal, except if you spend a lot of time "off grid". Which is why I have 2 panels and a second battery, which in practice, extends my "offline" time by a couple of days. And makes needing the Generator, less frequent. This however is the case only in "summer" where longer daylight hours reduce demand and increase input. In the darker months, it boils down to needing EHU. or More frequent use of the Genny. Probably the single most cost effective thing was the fitting of LED "bulbs" throughout.

 

[JFD]

I'm not sure that you need to write the cost of a re-fillable system off purely against the cost of the gas. Surely, it's an improvement to the vehicle, just as adding double glazing would be an enhancement to the value of a house. As far as I am concerned, a refillable system's benefits are primarily the avoidance of lugging the cylinders around, empty out of, then full into, a hole which was designed to be an incredibly tight fit! I fitted our Gas It system myself, with help from the experienced folk at Gas It to specify what I needed, and also with a lot of assistance from their video library.

 

[EssexBoy]

Also don't forget the cost of actually going and getting a calor refill. In my case it was a 30 mile round trip in a gas guzzler car....

Anyways it's a bargain compared with E&P levelling jack's, 45 extra Leisure batteries and 2000kw of solar on your hymer mobilvetta n&b luxury liner

Sorry... Couldnt resist....

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Allenaah]

Minxy

I found your thread very informative, as I have of others,just on the convenience side I will be purchasing Gas-it bottles

Thank you everybody for taking the time to reply

 

[Go Humberto!]

Another Thumbs-Up for GASIT LPG conversion here.

We've done about 100 nights away in all seasons since we bought the Hymer in late 2016.

Since then we've used 140L of LPG and paid £76 for the privilege. (Cooking, heating, BBQ, fridge as we mostly don't pay for a hook-up since we got the Solar panel).

That's approximately 70Kg of LPG. We originally had 2 x 6Kg Calor bottles which cost around £20 to recharge, or £230 for the 70Kg we've used (actually we haven't used any of the last 25L I just put in there).

It's one of the few modifications that REALLY pays for itself in a timeframe that you're likely to own the vehicle. I think 2 years use will cover our own installation costs*

*One thing to bear in mind however is that it's often the case that Calor Bottles are returned before they are empty, to avoid "running dry". That's another advantage of the GASIT approach, you top up when convenient, not when your Calor bottles tell you to do so.

The other big success has been the 150W Solar Panel. I haven't done the sums on that. It was expensive and we got it for the freedom it gives you rather than any payback but, if I add up the cost of a 240v hookup on sites, I expect it may pay for itself over time. It's still more about the freedom to go off-grid it provides though.

Our main limiting factor is cassette emptying. We have water on board for a week if we're careful. The GASIT and Solar take care of cooking/heating. Shame the Toilet really only copes with 2 days or so (not something I like to take to the limit).

 

[Feltwell]

Our main limiting factor is cassette emptying. We have water on board for a week if we're careful. The GASIT and Solar take care of cooking/heating. Shame the Toilet really only copes with 2 days or so (not something I like to take to the limit).

Try having 3 kids with you - 100l fresh tank lasts just over 2 days at best, cassette needs emptying every 36 hours at most. Still, even though we carry a spare cassette we've never had to use it!

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}