Refillable Gas (1 Viewer)

[Doug53]

We are planning to go down through France to Spain March/ April is refillable gas the best way to go as I understand I won’t be able to exchange my Calor bottles

 

[adonisito]

You won’t get Calor, no. You could buy a French regulator, attach it, and then use French bottles or get a refillable system. We’ve done both, but as we fulltime now, the refillables are best for us. I have 2 x 11kg Galsow bottles.

 

[Two on Tour]

Refillable is not the cheapest option unless you are a heavy user or thinking long term but it is the most convenient when travelling abroad.
If you go for refillable cylinders rather than an underslung tank then you can of course in most cases move them from van to van if you change vans.

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[glenn2926]

Refillable is usually around one fifth of the cost of bottled gas. We have an underslung tank (55 litres) and have had absolutely no problem filling anywhere in UK, France, Spain,Portugal, Belgium or Holland so far. I would definitely recommend getting a refillable system. The added bonus of having the underslung tank is gaining a large locker where the gas cylinders used to be.

 

[tonka]

AN ALTERNATIVE..

If your plan is mainly to be in Spain then your calor will / should last easily for the France section.
Once in Spain buy a used Spanish bottle for €10 ish.. a 13kg refill is about €14... SORTED....

I have butane bottles and so all thats needed is to take off the clip on bottle adaptor from the end of the pigtail and replace with a "jumbo" spanish adapter. Available here in UK from several supplied about £15-20. There are 2 main suppliers in Spain.. Repsol and Cepsa, both have the same fitting.

 

[scotjimland]

Refillable bottles

Same reply I gave on the other thread on Tuesday >> https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/gas-refillable-or-exchange-bottles.185706/#post-3056682

There is no doubt if you are a heavy gas user re-fillable is the way to go and if you also plan long trips abroad, it's the best way... short trips abroad it's not required, we toured Europe for many many years in both camper vans and caravans without re-fillables.

Therefore, much depends on your use.. if you primarily use sites in the UK with EHU and you use electric heating , gas consumption is quite low .. if you are an off site camper then gas use will be higher .. especially in winter

Another factor is availability of Autogas.. Calor can be found in just about every UK town and village.. Autogas is widely available, but there are places, especially in the Highlands and Island of Scotland where it is less so.

I fitted 2 x11kg Gaslow in my motorhome and it was excellent.. particularly abroad, but I won't be fitting in my caravan as we now mainly using sites and EHU, we have 240v space and water heating, and cooking, so gas use is low, refillable would't be cost effective ..

I appreciate it's not just cost, there is also the convenience of not lifting heavy bottles, but laying out £500 for Gaslow buys a lot of Calor.. it would take years for me to break even.. and exchanging a 6 kg propane bottle is not heavy lifting.

As for a single refillable bottle.. I would forget it.. many garages won't allow filling them..

Bottom line.. There is no "one size fits all' or 'best' system for for everyone.. tell us how you plan to tour, using sites or not and if using all year or not .

Refillable is usually around one fifth of the cost of bottled gas.

To fill an 11kg re-fillable bottle, (22L) with Autogas at 70p/L = £15.40

a 13kg Calor Propane is £34.50 .. = £1.32 per liter

therefore Calor is roughly twice the price of Autogas ...

buying Autogas you are saving of 62p per litre..

doing the maths..

You would need to buy 806 Litres of Autogas to break even on the refillable install

that's a lot of Autogas.. about 36 refills.. of an 11kg bottle ! ..

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[mfw]

Filled at morrisons the other day 20.36 lts gas was 0.58 a ltr so 20.3 lts of gas refill cost £11.79 so somewhere around 10kg+ of gas

 

[scotjimland]

Filled at morrisons the other day 20.36 lts gas was 0.58 a ltr

I was using an average price as supplied by UK LPG site for our area.. it averages between 69 - 73p

In France..

LPG 0.609 €/L. - 0.979 €/L

it is certainly not a 1/5 the cost of Calor..

 

[Cheshirecat57]

The other option is a Safefill lightweight refillable at £150 to £175 dependant of size
The larger holds 19 litres ( most underslungs are only 25 litres)

We like ours because it is light in weight, so can be a pink or blue job
Also ,unlike calor you can part fill or top up when not empty

Very flexible....and not £500

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[two]

AN ALTERNATIVE..

View attachment 263931

Thought you were running off beer!
but that would've been more expensive.

 

[two]

Consider getting just one SafeFill bottle, especially if the investment cost is a concern. Then you can use a local bottle of whatever variety is available (I believe they’re cheap in Spain). A SafeFill bottle is remarkably light as well.

 

[klaatu]

AN ALTERNATIVE..

If your plan is mainly to be in Spain then your calor will / should last easily for the France section.
Once in Spain buy a used Spanish bottle for €10 ish.. a 13kg refill is about €14... SORTED....

Presumably one could do a similar thing in Portugal?

Steve

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[mfw]

If you look at 2nd hand bottles and the prices they get - if you bought new used them a few years and then sold them you certainly would not lose a lot - you can buy new for £250 or less - factor in exchange foreign bottles and regulators and exchange costs - the ease of a refillable will probably make it worthwhile

 

[mikebeaches]

We delayed getting refillable for some years because we don't use much gas - mostly on hook-ups, and could do 6 weeks on the continent in spring / summer no problem.

But now we've got the van over in Spain for six months during the winter, decided to get 1 x 11kg refillable bottle, to sit alongside a 6kg Calor lite propane in the locker. Bought the Gas-it bottle and had a technician fit it on our drive at home. He made a really neat job and the total cost was just under £300. Happy with that, for the convenience alone.

 

[hilldweller]

We are planning to go down through France to Spain March/ April is refillable gas the best way to go as I understand I won’t be able to exchange my Calor bottles

Yes.

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[tonka]

Presumably one could do a similar thing in Portugal?

Steve

Not familiar with Portugese bottles but it would onle be a case of getting the right pigtail or connector..

 

[Lenny HB]

Used to use exchange bottles when we were tuggers but had to use sites and had EHU.
10 years of Motorhomes always had refillable as now we don't use sites and on all the vans we have had the heating has been gas only.
Found they easily repay themselves. Current 2 X 14kg Alugas bottles now 4½ years old were transferred from the last an. So far this year put in over a 170 Lt most we have paid is 64p Lt often a lot lower. Cost not really relevant it's more about convenience.

 

[daveandsan]

I’m with @Lenny HB on this, it’s all about convenience. We have had two 11kg refillable Alugas bottles for five years now and wouldn’t be without them, no lugging bottles about.
If you have a refillable system and run out of gas abroad you can get an adapter to connect a local bottle into your system.

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[Northernraider]

53p a litre here for gas and the most I paid in spain was 63 cents a litre ..
I fitted 2 x 11kg gasit bottles £330 for the kit
Paid for themselves with 6 months of use.

 

[Anesta]

Out of curiosity: when you refill the Alugas bottles (thinking of getting them), do you take them out of the van? Asking because I have been told that in Germany you can't refill them if they are sitting in the van (which leads me to think that you can do so in other Countries?)
Thanks

 

[The Dotties]

I bought a twin bottle gaslow system in the week from @Boater.
I believe he still has a single gaslow system on offer.

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[TerryL]

Forgive me, might be getting a bit thick, but what is the point of having a refillable bottle AND a Calor bottle? We've never had a problem getting autogas refills anywhere in Europe, so when one bottle runs out we go looking for a refill. There's always enough to wait until it's convenient; okay we have had occasion to have to go off track but, hey, we're on holiday so no sweat, somewhere else to see. The only place it isn't available is Morocco and we make other arrangements there (see my Morocco article in Resources). The cost of a second refillable bottle is only a little more than a Calor and the cheaper gas would soon cover the extra cost.

The only reason I can think of is you are parked up for a long time somewhere and it is easier to just exchange a bottle without moving the van. IMO you might as well have a caravan, motorhomes are for touring in. And don't get me started about "toads"!

We had two Calor bottles originally, unfortunately the gas locker is only big enough to take 6kg bottles, but as soon as we started going continental, fitting a dual refillable system was a no-brainer. We bought it for the convenience but the reduced gas price was a bonus - we've easily recovered the installation cost. Now seriously considering an underslung tank.

But I suppose each to his own.

 

[Emmit]

Forgive me, might be getting a bit thick, but what is the point of having a refillable bottle AND a Calor bottle? We've never had a problem getting autogas refills anywhere in Europe, so when one bottle runs out we go looking for a refill. There's always enough to wait until it's convenient; okay we have had occasion to have to go off track but, hey, we're on holiday so no sweat, somewhere else to see. The only place it isn't available is Morocco and we make other arrangements there (see my Morocco article in Resources). The cost of a second refillable bottle is only a little more than a Calor and the cheaper gas would soon cover the extra cost.

The only reason I can think of is you are parked up for a long time somewhere and it is easier to just exchange a bottle without moving the van. IMO you might as well have a caravan, motorhomes are for touring in. And don't get me started about "toads"!

We had two Calor bottles originally, unfortunately the gas locker is only big enough to take 6kg bottles, but as soon as we started going continental, fitting a dual refillable system was a no-brainer. We bought it for the convenience but the reduced gas price was a bonus - we've easily recovered the installation cost. Now seriously considering an underslung tank.

But I suppose each to his own.

Exactly Terry Except, We are in the position right now where we have been holed up for the last five weeks.

Had we got a Calor bottle or similar, we would have been using that one, (expensive I know) and let it run out and then go onto the Gaslow bottle while we found a supplier of 'Bought as Full' bottle. We do have the availability of a car to do this.

The nearest supplier of refillable gas at Old-mo's is a 26mile round trip.

I appreciate your comments and, under normal? circs. I would agree with you but the devil is in the detail. Thing is, we wouldn't be able to do it if we didn't have an exchange bottle

 

[Lenny HB]

Out of curiosity: when you refill the Alugas bottles (thinking of getting them), do you take them out of the van? Asking because I have been told that in Germany you can't refill them if they are sitting in the van (which leads me to think that you can do so in other Countries?)
Thanks

Never had a problem in Germany. Best to have an external filler mine is one of the small square ones mounted in the skirt.
Often if you do get refused just go to the next garage that happened in Italy. Got refused once in Portugal they said we don't fill bottles I pointed at the external filler and said it's a tank and they filled me.

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[denisejoe]

We've got 2 Gaslow bottles. Never had a problem refilling tnem.
, even though the filler is in a locker,

 

[Ex-caravantugger]

The other option is a Safefill lightweight refillable at £150 to £175 dependant of size
The larger holds 19 litres ( most underslungs are only 25 litres)

We like ours because it is light in weight, so can be a pink or blue job
Also ,unlike calor you can part fill or top up when not empty

Very flexible....and not £500

Consider getting just one SafeFill bottle, especially if the investment cost is a concern. Then you can use a local bottle of whatever variety is available (I believe they’re cheap in Spain). A SafeFill bottle is remarkably light as well.

And if filling abroad @Doug53 will need an extra left-hand thread adaptor. Mike

 

[Landy Andy]

With all the above mentioned maths to be accurate you would need to include all the times you end up handing a cylinder in with gas still in it, as you don’t want to risk running out, or you are heading off for a long period.

Refillable is just so easy. After every trip away I fill with fuel, and refill my gas. Sometimes only a couple of £ into the gas, but I know I’m always full and ready to go.

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[vwalan]

these work well as well.
ideal if you need to fill up abroad.
mind i never hand in part bottles thats daft.

 

[Basildog]

With all the above mentioned maths to be accurate you would need to include all the times you end up handing a cylinder in with gas still in it, as you don’t want to risk running out, or you are heading off for a long period.

Refillable is just so easy. After every trip away I fill with fuel, and refill my gas. Sometimes only a couple of £ into the gas, but I know I’m always full and ready to go.

In over 30 years I have never handed in a cylinder with even the smell of gas left
I always seem to end up collecting cylinders as certainly never paid for a deposit, we actually often either sell an empty or sometimes full cylinder to someone at a meet who has run out or needs more .
Mind I have refillable too and also fill my own Calor bottles

 

[mfw]

In over 30 years I have never handed in a cylinder with even the smell of gas left
I always seem to end up collecting cylinders as certainly never paid for a deposit, we actually often either sell an empty or sometimes full cylinder to someone at a meet who has run out or needs more .
Mind I have refillable too and also fill my own Calor bottles

You might think it a good idea for anyone to buy an adaptor and fill their own exchange bottles but i dont and neither do a lot of other people it is asking for trouble