Gas Bottles

[susanswift]

Well at long last i have my new van.

So the question is: I havent got any gas bottles, so which type would be best to buy and do i get one or two?

I can see me asking lots of silly questions due to it beu=ing my first van
Thank you

 

[dougie201]

Hi Susanswift.

Firstly are you going to use your caravan all year round ? By that i mean in the winter? If so i would go for Propane thats the red bottles. You can use Butane thats the blue ones but they are not to good in winter as this gas freezes if you like if the weather is to cold. Propane does not, or has a much lower point of not gassing.
Also i would just start with one bottle to see how you go and i would go for the propane lite as these are much lighter than normal bottles. But they do cost a pound or two more .

Dougie......

 

[Jaydug]

If you are going to caravan during the winter, you'll need propane - red cylinders. Otherwise butane in the blue cylinders will do. You don't buy cylinders - you hire them from Calor, but you can quite often get hold of them privately. Also for a little 'palm grease' one of the guys at your local tip may let you have one. If you do get one second hand, change it for a new one since one you pick up may be damaged.

 

[Sproket]

One thing what comes to mind is how much kgs can you put on your tow ball ?
Do you need two bottles ??

A bit of onfo:

A Calor Gas CalorLight 6kg Gas Cylinder is made from lightweight steel,
the CalorLite propane cylinder is 49.7% lighter than the standard Calor 6kg cylinder and includes the Gas Trac gauge
Approx. Total Weight: 10.52kg
Approx. Content Weight: 6kg
Approx. Tare Weight: 4.52kg
Approx. Height: 487mm
Approx. Diameter: 246mm
The 3.9kg cylinder that you allready have will weigh in the region of 9.6 kg when full
The photo's below are of my calor light bottle,
Most bottles have there tare weight stamped on the plate near to the outlet valve
This bottle is stamped with it on the base ring.

So in here when full is 6kg of propane & it will weigh approx 10.42kg
When it's all used it will weigh 4.42kg

But i think you really need to read this about using propane safely

If you have a look here it will give you some idea of sizes & prices ( we have a 13kg bottle ) which is cheaper to refill than the 6kg light & i get twice as much gas

& the 13kg is only as heavy as two normal 6kg bottles @ around 30kg...........

but two 6kg calor light bottles only weigh when both are full About 21kg............

 

[DeliDave_]

We use Flogas which is available from builders merchants etc and fair bit cheaper,also there was no deposit so I have some spares but I think there is a deposit now

 

[HOVIS1]

I have just exchanged my 2 Gaslite Bottles and both guages fitted do not work. When I commented on this to my dealer his response was" They never where much good!" So I have now fitted a seperate Gasflow Guage, as we used in our Motorhome - no problem !
SO WATCH IT !!

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Hovis,

I concur, very few of the bottle mounted guages seem to be reliable,but they work in a different way to the Gaslow system. The bottle mounted types usually used a float, but due to the nature of LPG, the floats often loose their boyancy. The gas low system sencesthe pressure in the bottle, and consequently they will only detect a bottle close to then of its charge as the liquified content is ended and then the bottle is only holding vapour.
Neither way is perfect, the only wholey reliable method is to weigh the bottle and to subtract the bottles tare weight to reveal the remaining content of LPG.

 

[Surfer]

Best is propane as can be used all year round with no problem, but it very expensive. The price for the same type of gas has almost doubled in the past 5 years! If youa re camping a lot, i.e. every weekend and long stays then an alternative system like Gaslow may be better as the gas itself is a lot cheaper.

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

The Camping & Caravan Club have technical data sheets at
http://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/helpandadvice/technicalhelp/datasheets/
If you go down the list there is a sheet for gas in tents and another for gas in caravans.
Happy reading.

 

[susanswift]

Thank you all for your kind advice.

I dont go all year. At least I dont think I will. But you never know. I know much more about gas then I ever did thanks to you chaps. And I love reading the information available.

Cheers Susan x