Refillable gas system -- what did you fit and why? (1 Viewer)

[Stacetop]

Without Gas heating you could probably manage with one but having two will definitely give you more flexibility.

If you take long holidays then it means you should manage on the gas you carry without having to move the van to fill up. If you move anyway then filling up might not so much of chore. I have also decided that where campsites charge extra for electric we won't have to pay that especially in summer when we will use less battery and have a solar panel. Even using the fridge on high power will probably use less moneys worth of gas than paying for electric. It is an expensive outlay but as we decided you can always move the bottles if you change vans. Its also great having been away for 10 days using the gas for fridge, water and very rarely the heating to find the gas used only cost £6.50!!!

I'm glad we have 2 bottles as I don't need to worry now and I will try to fill them up as much as I can. In the past we have had to take full calor bottles away with us abroad just in case.

 

[normanandsue]

I'm completely new to this and haven't even got my first motorhome yet (Bailey 625 being delivered on the 1st March), so what I would really like to know is where I can take it to thats close(ish) to my home in Tewkesbury to get a refillable system fitted, what do I need (the Bailey brochure says it takes 2x10kg bottles), how much is it likely to cost if all the work is done for me by a pro and should I shop around on price?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge but thanks if anyone can point me in the right direction. If I do any of the work myself there is no doubt that a fiery fireball will be the end result!

Bob, don't apologise for lack of knowledge, it helps to admit your limitations on here because people don't make assumptions but give you the advice you seek.
I can't help with who is near to you who can do the job as I live in Scotland, but as you are new to the whole mh experience I can recommend going to a show/meet - The Peterborough show is a large one with plenty of exhibitors you can trawl for advice and then armed with all the sales pitch come back to the Funster meet and ask around the Funsters and you will get all the advice you need.

As regards cost I have been quoted £560 all fitted by Autogas and they will fit it at the show so my delivery/travel costs are covered by my trip to the show. As I have received no other quotes I can't compare but I shall ask around.

Norman

 

[Taran_Las]

Just checked my invoice from GAS-it.

Dated 12/12/2012 (honest)

2 off 6kg cylinders
All fittings, adapters & delivery. £287.66(inc) (to be self fitted)

Hope this gives an indication of the possible cost.

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[Sheddy]

Refillable gas system

Hi,

I recently fitted the twin gasit 6kg system which cost roughly £300 with the European adaptor kit.
Current price on the site is £330.
I would recommend the external filling system apparently some of the fill stations in Europe will not allow you to fill through an internal filler.

For the external system you will need to cut a 70mm hole through where you decide to fit the filler.
I have a 70mm cutter you can borrow if you need, it has only been used once for my system.

Recently returned from France and Spain had no problems finding filling stations in the various guides. Auchan Supermarkets seem to be good suppliers, and you can stay overnight if you wish.

Cheers
Ed:thumb:

 

[MitchandJenny]

Hi UKBILL.. Don't know where you are, but it really is a very straight forward job to fit, even if you have to go to the local garage and get them to drill the hole for the re-fill point in the body panel (if you don't have the hole cutter). And when I ordered from gas-it, my 11kg bottle and all the kit arrived next day on the doorstep.. Cost about £350 all in, including 3 adaptors for the different countries... Mitch..

 

[lunarman]

I'm completely new to this and haven't even got my first motorhome yet (Bailey 625 being delivered on the 1st March), so what I would really like to know is where I can take it to thats close(ish) to my home in Tewkesbury to get a refillable system fitted, what do I need (the Bailey brochure says it takes 2x10kg bottles), how much is it likely to cost if all the work is done for me by a pro and should I shop around on price?

Sorry for my lack of knowledge but thanks if anyone can point me in the right direction. If I do any of the work myself there is no doubt that a fiery fireball will be the end result!

Hi Bobalt,

If you don't think Telford (be a good day out) is too far then Dave Newell would be a good choice and you get Funster discount.

John

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[Jaws]

I only use one 11kg bottle.
Two reasons
1) one fill of the one bottle lasts us ages ( and we are fairly heavy users )

2) the other space we put a spanish bottle in.. Reason ? Because when we are plotted up on site for two months we can swap it out without moving the van ( which would be major with awning etc etc )

Autogas2000 supplied us with the bits we needed at minimal cost to be able to swap things over easily and quickly

 

[Stewart J]

For anyone going the external filler route as said the Gaslow requires a 70mm hole drilling, why not fit the alugas filler it only requires a hole of an inch or just over and couplings are comparable with all other systems. :thumb:

 

[flatpackchicken]

I had the Alugas 2 x 11kg bottles fitted by Dave Newell, best thing I ever did, as actually cut down on the payload some with the ultru light bottles and each bottle lasted me about 3 weeks with it running the cooker and the big type of gas fridge with separate freezer on top as the heating was run on diesel, had manual changover as like to know when 1st bottler empty so I can start looking out over next 3 weeks for a LPG station, and costs less than £30 to fill up both tanks about 40ltrs from normal petrol stations, against normal 6kg calor bottles that would cost about £80 to fill up and not available abroad either, but overall best type of gas bottles with the filler on the outside of motorhome in the skirt so looks like you are just filling up a gas powered vehicle and have had no problems with filling at all even had attendants out helping me connect up at 2 stations in Belgium and Spain, Best overall system for light weight and convenience, no more lifting heavy awkward bottles in and out of gas cupboard and no more trying to hunt down gas stockists, and total convenience when travelling abroad as any petrol station that has LPG pump will do. Regards Garry Flatpackchicken

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[bungy]

Chocks, I have an Eberspacher heater so no problems with running out of gas during the night heating wise. "Fridge wise", not sure how long that would last.

Did I mention I was paranoid?

which 'I' are we talking too

 

[Taran_Las]

which 'I' are we talking too

Both


I've got two eyes you know

 

[Minxy]

We have a single Gaslow 11kg cylinder with a fill-point inside the gas locker, the system set up in this way has been moved by me from our previous two motorhomes to our current PVC without a problem. We bought the system in June 2009 and fitted it into our Rimor, at first we took a Calor bottle with us too but found we never ever needed it! We then changed to a Chausson Flash 04 and the locker only took 1 bottle, so it was a good job we HAD a refillable bottle already!

We now have a Autocruise Accent PVC with a gas locker that is only 'supposed' to take 2 x 6/7kg bottles, but I managed to get my single 11kg Gaslow bottle in (involved a lump hammer ... ) and again fitted the fill point in the locker with it.

We've never had a problem filling either in the UK or abroad, not once, quite the opposite in fact as the attendants are more than happy to help! :thumb:

The benefits of a refillable system:
- Ability to top it up in all countries
- Is cheaper than using exchange cylinders
- We don't have to hump around/connect/disconnect cylinders
- We have gained some extra storage space as I managed to 'squeeze' in a 11kg Gaslow bottle where 2 x 7kg Calor (or 2 x 6kg Gaslow) ones were only supposed fit leaving space to accommodate our hose pipe/water fill bits and pieces, in the locker too (still allowing clear space for any leaking gas to escape safely through the drop vents I hasten to add!)
- Can easily be transferred to another vehicle (we've had it in 3 different ones now!).
- Don't have the extra weight of carrying 2 cylinders - a consideration if your van has a low payload.

The drawbacks:
- Initial cost of the refillable bottle, pipes, connectors etc
- People may be 'frightened' at the thought of having to do the filling!
- A few people say they have 'heard' that some garages refuse to allow them to be refilled (but we've never had that problem at all!)

I've kept records of refills from day one on a spreadsheet (yes I like to know what we're using etc!) and based purely on my experience - and including the cost of 'hiring' the 2 x Calor cylinders as they would be a genuine cost for anyone starting out - the costings come out as follows:

My 'spreadsheet' shows we've topped it up 21 times, ranging from 3.11 litres to 15.0 litres, with a total of 194.04 litres.

Gaslow

Cost of 11kg single bottle Gaslow system including all fittings (1 x 11kg bottle, hoses, fill point & bracket) and 3 types of European connectors - £240 (Gas-it didn't exist at the time).

£240.00 for system (fitted by me)
£139.10 for refills (an average cost per litre of 72p)
£379.10

Calor

With Calor exchange cylinders we would have had a mix of 13kg and 6kg cylinders as follows (to take account of the fact that our current van would only take the more expensive 6kg containers):

£166 13kg cylinder (118 litres in total)
£180 6kg cylinder (76 litres in total)
£346 Estimated total cost of Calor gas
+£58 cost of Calor empty cylinders (rental agreement)
£404 Total cost of Calor gas and cylinders:

Note that this doesn't allow for the 'wasted' gas that there would have been due to having to exchange some cylinders that were not empty.

So, overall:

£404 = Total Calor cost (gas exchanges plus initial 'hire' of 2 cylinders)
£380 = Total Gaslow cost (£240 plus the gas cost of £140)
=£24 Saving over Calor

We also sold our 'old' Calor cylinders to someone else for £50 for the two, so if you put this into the equation that makes at least a £74 saving over the cost of using Calor cylinders, so we've already passed our payback point.:thumb:

One other thing that comes to mind is that when exchanging a Calor cylinder we would have been 'giving back' some gas in the bottom of the cylinder which we'd paid for as it wouldn't have been 'usable' - even if we'd utilised as much as possible at some point it would have got too low and cease to 'gas' any more. However, with a refillable cylinder as we don't keep replacing this 'bottom' gas because we just top it up all the time, so this would also affect the calculations - I can't work out the actual cost though as I am not sure what amount of unusable gas would normally be left in the Calor cylinder, but obviously this would increase the savings made by us with our Gaslow system but to what extent I don't know!

I think that all makes sense!

For us it was a no brainer to have a refillable system due to the length of time we spend abroad, especially since there's no way we could carry enough Calor cylinders to last us for the whole of the trip due to the size of the gas lockers - we had one holiday of 47 days using over 40 litres and another of 28 days using at least 26 litres. We don't do sites so wild camp or use aires and therefore our gas is on for the fridge whenever we're not driving. We also supplement the Gaslow system by using a portable camping stove which runs off the cheap 'aerosol' type canisters for when we're cooking stinky or messy stuff so we can do this outside the van if we wish, therefore we estimate we use around 1 litre of gas a day over the summer and obviously more in cooler weather.

One thing I would consider though, if I wanted an external fill point, is one of the Gas-it ones as they are more discrete than the larger Gaslow filler which we have and can be mounted under a rear bumper if required to alleviate the need to cut a hole at all.

http://leisurelines.net/gas-it-in-locker-angled-bracket-remote-fill-system-3995-p.asp

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[bungy]

Both


I've got two eyes you know

oh lordy....with the amazing advances in medical things these days, sure it wont be too long before you get some help

 

[jetjem]

One bottle or Two

Hi folks,
Just joined the forum and about to collect Hymer on Tuesday. We are looking to stay in Portugal for about a month to 6 weeks so have been reading the info on gas bottles. I would love to fit 2 Alu bottles it's just the cost and will I use them?
So it looks like I will opt for 1 Gasit with external filler and one T branch for outdoor cooking and carry a 907 as a standby/ or forget the T branch and use the 907 for outdoors. What do you think?

I have read about problems filling bottles. I know that in Bulgaria there are only certain times of the day when you can refill bottles, I think this is due to daytime temperatures. Early morning is the best time so it may be the same in other parts of the EU.

Eddie

 

[MitchandJenny]

Hi JETJEM .. You can fit a BBQ point to the outside of your van, then its just a quarter twist fit connector onto the BBQ point and connect a length of gas pipe from it to your barby..
Simples....

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