Gas Bottles: Total Newbie Question

[amouses]

Hello everybody. My first post so please be gentle!

We are about to buy a Motorhome in Switzerland and need advice on guidance on Gas bottle standards in Europe and also the UK (my home country, but I'm living in Switzerland right now).

Anyway, when the more expert of you have picked themselves off the floor from laughing ....

Does anybody have any good links on

a) The different standards (so I hear?) for different countries

b) Ways to fill up the bottles yourself perhaps instead of exchanging them everywhere

I await kind responses

Thanks

Agata and Marcus

 

[Flicka]

In UK Calor are by far the biggest in the market & the majority prefer to use Propane (red cylinders) v Butane- (blue cylinder0 DON'T attempt self refill cylinders, unless you go for a specific REFILLABLE systems with fixed tank. (Gaslow or Autogas or similar)

 

[TonyJones]

Hi Marcus, and welcome.
There are no stupid questions, for EVERY question some people know the answer and some don't. Otherwise there's be no question mark on our keyboards !
As to YOUR question, every brand has its own fittings, so you'll need a new regulator or "pigtail" every time you change brand. Also, brands don't accept each other's empties. So if your going to be crossing borders quite often, there are only two easy ways:
1. Use Campingaz, the only universal brand - but it comes in very small bottles, and is VERY expensive per litre of gas
2. Installing a refillable system as John suggests above. Quite an outlay, but the gas is MUCH cheaper than any exchange system, and no more lugging bottles about (you fill up with LPG at petrol stations).

 

[DonnaG]

It might be helpful if people were to post some actual costs on this one, as it's a frequently asked question but we all have our own opinions and requirements.

So for us: when we decided to start touring five years ago, we knew we'd be going from one country to another, and didn't want to be swopping bottle types in each country, nor did we have space to fit a decent sized LPG system. On that basis, we went with the Camping Gaz option, so we now have one Propane bottle and two 907 Camping Gaz bottles. In the UK, Camping Gaz costs around £33 a time, it was €30 in the Netherlands, around €23 in France, €16.50 at the moment in Spain. If we're spending time on sites/aires with electric, or not running the gas heater, eating salads and therefore not using as much hot water for cooking/washing, and so on, a 907 can last us up to a month. When we came down the coast of Spain this year, it was chilly in the evening and morning so we would have the gas fire on a bit, and as we were wildcamping, all washing up, brewing up, etc was done by way of Gaz water heating. We used three bottles in the month, ie €49.50 or £37 a month. But as we didn't spend anything on campsites, it all worked out within our budget. Horses for courses, as the saying goes

 

[Retread]

If you intend to tour throughout Europe then a refillable system would be the best solution. Living in Switzerland may make obtaining one of the UK systems problematic, but never fear, we continentals have a cunning plan. And not so far away!
Borel HomeGaz can provide both slung under and 13Kg style cylinders.
Borel Homegaz in French.

 

[Retread]

If you are worried about availability of GPL Autogaz in Europe then the following link gives both map locations and GPS POI coordinates , there are also "Apps" whatever they are !!