michaelmorris Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 I've recently been investigating options for gas when we are in France. After initially dismissing a refillable cylinder system such as that sold by Gaslow and Gas-it, I decided to do a little more digging to see if my initial assessment as to their suitability for our situation was correct. The economics turned out to not be quite as bad as I originally thought, so I delved a little deeper into the technical feasibility of the option of fitting a single Gas-it cylinder. Whilst fitting it myself looks eminently doable I'm a bit stumped as to where to get the gas to put in it! Reading many threads here and elsewhere, again and again people extol the convenience of such systems in that one can simply pull up at a petrol station and fill up. I've done a bit of research and I've so far failed to find a single place in the whole of Worcestershire where I can fill up with gas! I've looked at various websites and they all seem to point to either places that only sell gas in cylinders or places that USED TO sell Autogas, but no longer do so. https://www.filllpg.co.uk/?page=lpg.php http://www.drivelpg.co.uk/i-have-lpg/find-a-filling-station/ https://www.mylpg.eu/stations/united-kingdom/ https://www.shell.co.uk/motorist/station-locator.html#iframe=Lz9sb2NhbGU9ZW5fR0IjL0A1Mi40NzYwOSwtMy4xMTI2MSw4ei8hTjRYeUE= So my question is this, where would I fill up the gas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve928 Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 Countrywide seem to have a lot of sites in that area, Hereford, Kiddie, Gloucester, Leominster etc.. Check out their list of sites here: https://www.countrywidelpg.co.uk/autogas/autogas-refuelling-outlets/ P.S. they do maintain their list so it should be up to date. P.P.S. I believe that you can fill at the domestic rate of tax at their own depots so that makes the economics even better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepe63xnotuse Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 Rather than just searching for "filling station" type outlets, are there no trade/industrial gas outlets that sell pumped lpg? (I know when I toyed with getting a refillable some years back, the only place anywhere near to us at the time that sold pumped lpg was a place out on the industrial estate, that did welding gases & oxy/acetylene etc...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 Michael I’d be surprised if there were no service-stations selling ‘autogas’ in Worcestershire that were not within a reasonably short driving distance from where you live. But, there again, the Midlands is a large area... The following link (repeating the link Steve provided above) carries a list of Countrywide Farmers autogas outlets, four of which are in Worcestershire (Bromsgrove, Worcester, Kidderminster, Malvern). https://www.countrywidelpg.co.uk/autogas/autogas-refuelling-outlets/ I’ve had an autogas account with Countrywide Farmers for years. Arranging an account is very straightforward and the procedure is covered here. https://www.countrywidelpg.co.uk/autogas/countrywides-autogas-key-system/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinM50 Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 A quick Google search threw this website up. http://www.getlpg.org.uk/stations/worcestershire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallii Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 There is Gas at the Countrywide in Bromsgrove, at the BP Birmingham Road Bromsgrove (nr the builders merchant Travis Perkins) and the Shell on Sandy Lane Lydiate Ash. There are several in Worcester, you will have no problem finding them once you start to look, most Shell stations seem to know where the nearest LPG is from a Shell station of course! Motorway services often have LPG as well. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul2 Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 ColinM50 - 2018-03-06 6:24 PM A quick Google search threw this website up. http://www.getlpg.org.uk/stations/worcestershire Hi Just looked at your link first one i looked at severn bridge has not been there for years!, the second calor centre (be luckier that me). The one on the AA422 at Flyford Flavell looked like it was closed down when I drove passed, I will be checking out Derek's countrywide listing for Malvern, but the best one I've found for me is in Herefordshire Texaco at the A4103 / A417 cross roads Lower Eggleton Ledbury, there is also one just out side Bromyard at Top Garage. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul2 Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 hallii - 2018-03-06 8:22 There are several in Worcester, you will have no problem finding them once you start to look, most Shell stations seem to know where the nearest LPG is from a Shell station of course! Hi Please tell me where, I'm always looking when i go passed filling station and not seen any in Worcester Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelmorris Posted March 6, 2018 Author Share Posted March 6, 2018 ColinM50 - 2018-03-06 6:24 PM A quick Google search threw this website up. http://www.getlpg.org.uk/stations/worcestershire That's one of the sites I've already looked at; A good example are the two entries are the two entries for Worcester - - The calor centre told me they only sell LPG in cylinders - The Severn Bridge garage closed down more than 5 years ago If one of the main selling points of Gaslow/Gas-it systems is convenience, I'm afraid I'm really struggling to see how driving for miles to find somewhere fill up with gas is more convenient than getting gas from a local garage, a camping store or from the camp site your are already staying on! :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vindiboy Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 http://www.drivelpg.co.uk/i-have-lpg/where-can-i-purchase-fuel/ Check this site out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrevorT Posted March 6, 2018 Share Posted March 6, 2018 I know that you are having problems finding a place where you can get autogas near to where you live. However don't forget that you will MOSTLY be filling it up somewhere else - wherever you are actually visiting. There are some parts of the country where it is difficult to find autogas - and I found the west midlands particularly difficult when I was there a few weeks ago. While I agree that it isn't as widely available as it used to be it is still available in many places in the UK. Particularly rural areas where it was attractive to the 4 x 4 owners. As long as you top it up when you see it you will be most unlikely to run out. Remember you don't have to empty the bottle before you refill it - you can just top it up whenever you want to. When you have an autogas system you do tend to spot it as you are driving pas garages. The thing to look for is a price on the hoarding around 50 to 70 pence per litre. Quite easy to spot when you know what to look for. The other clue as you approach is three prices listed rather than the two (petrol diesel LPG). We just top it up when we see it. Even with a modern gas hungry Motorhome 24 litre capacity will last us 8 days in sub zero temperatures. We usually top up when we have used 8 to 12 litres. The same is true in France and Spain. You cant get it everywhere, but the lists in the Vicarious guides have been pretty reliable for us. However we rarely resort to looking it up, we just top up when we see it. We were worried that we would have problems finding it in Spain, but it was readily available in what seemed like 60% of REPSOL stations. More likely to be available on major roads/motorways of course. That was for a trip from St Sebastion, to Cartagena and back. Of course you cannot ignore price differences. A 6kg Calor propane exchange - is that now about £25? - against £6.80 for the same amount of autogas. It does depend on how you use your motorhome of course. If you go from campsite to campsite then you will not use much gas, and the economics are in favour of the exchange bottle. If you use britstops, aires and the like in the winter then it is in favour of the refillable bottle. When you are abroad I really see it as the obvious answer. I am not interested in messing about with locally sourced bottles in each country I visit. Finally it is your choice, but you could try one refillable bottle sitting alongside a calor bottle, so that you have the best of both worlds. Finally, having a refillable bottle in our we last camper, we had no hesitation in buying a double bottle installation for the new one. For us - its a no-brainer. Trevor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 If a motorhome’s gas-locker can accommodate a canister little larger than a Calor 6kg bottle (as seems likely in Michael’s case) choosing a Gaslow Direct Fill R67 6kg container would seem to be the simplest refillable-bottle option. This has a reliable/accurate contents gauge and comes with a suitable 37mbar regulator http://www.gaslowdirect.com/Gaslow-R67-6kg-Direct-Fill-Cylinder-Kit http://www.outdoorbits.com/gaslow-direct-fill-bottles-c-123_457.html but this approach would still cost over £150 for the bottle, plus the cost of a France-appropriate filling adapter. And - if a Calor propane bottle were to be carried as a back-up - either the Gaslow-provided regulator would need removal or an adapter would need fitting to it before the Calor bottle could be brought into play. http://www.gaslowdirect.com/epages/cyujrhdmmu67.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/cyujrhdmmu67/Products/01-1674 Obviously any user-refillable gas bottle will need to be filled with LPG initially, but subsequently the bottle can be topped up when the motorhome is on its travels (as Trevor emphasises). If autogas is as hard to find locally as Michael believes, he may wish to explore buying a Gaslow bottle from Brownhills at Newark https://www.motorhomeshop.co.uk/gaslow?records_per_page=20&page=3 where there is (apparently) an LPG filling station where the bottle might be initially filled. Taking a motorhome abroad presents potential difficulties regarding gas availability and these were discussed a few days ago here http://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/Gas-in-France-queries-/48853/ This is rather like the ACSI campsites question Michael asked at the end of last year. There are plenty of options but no definitive solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinM50 Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 TrevorT - 2018-03-06 10:44 PM Finally it is your choice, but you could try one refillable bottle sitting alongside a calor bottle, so that you have the best of both worlds. Finally, having a refillable bottle in our we last camper, we had no hesitation in buying a double bottle installation for the new one. For us - its a no-brainer. Trevor That's exactly what I've done. Don't use a lot of gas, filled up twice last year in Belgium at around €3.00 each time and never touched the calor cylinder, it's just there as an emergency lifeline. Can't believe how cheap autogas is. Fitting the Gasit was one of my better decisions, puts your mind at rest esp if abroad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rupert123 Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 Bit of a strange question this We have had a refillable system since 2008 and have never had a problem in UK or europe filling up. We do not have a local supplier but so what, plenty on route. We have just one 11kg bottle which lasts around four weeks in the summer so look out for gas after a couple of weeks, never failed to get a refill. We use a mixture of sites and aires, about three aires to one site usually. Why bother about the costs, it is convenience that counts and to keep changing bottles is just a mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul2 Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 Hi It was the first fill that I had problems with (not yet had fill a second time) only fitted last October. I have seen places to fill on my travels and don't see that it will be a problem next time. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepe63xnotuse Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 michaelmorris - 2018-03-06 9:30 PM If one of the main selling points of Gaslow/Gas-it systems is convenience, I'm afraid I'm really struggling to see how driving for miles to find somewhere fill up with gas is more convenient than getting gas from a local garage, a camping store or from the camp site your are already staying on! :-( Mornin' Michael.. I know when we toyed with getting a refillable some years back I, like you, found that of the entries on the websites that were anywhere *near us , many were no longer in existence..... (*having said that, I now see from Derek's countrywide link, that it is showing an outlet at a van rental company near(ish) to us?..so maybe I just wasn't looking in the right locations?... :-S ) Although I can fully understand the "fill up somewhere on route" approach, personally I do(did) like to set off as "fully prepared" as possible, so can relate to you wanting to be able to fill up locally... But I suppose as others have said, once you have had the initial fill-up, and then used a few "on-route" locations, it would all just seem natural enough....? (if you are in/around Worcester, presumably the M5 south would feature in some of your trips?..if so does Gloucester services not have lpg?...it always strikes me as the sort of service station that would?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breakaleg Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 Junction 3 M40/42 Can never remember which motorway but the services. at Alvechurch also Haye lane near Studley, Shell garage on the A38 at Northfield south Birmingham. most service areas on the M5 I have found that the further south you go the rarer they get, there is an app for both Android and Apple called fill pg which updates several times a day and will show you where on google maps. Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 Whilst it is cheaper abroad we always found it more convenient to start a trip with gas full and I used to get Autogas at the service station at the Evesham Country Park on the A46 just to the North outside Evesham where the A44 joins the A46 and never had a problem filling or with the price. I seem to recall Autogas was also available at the service station further North where the A46 splits to the A435 just outside Alcester, never used it so can't comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelmorris Posted March 8, 2018 Author Share Posted March 8, 2018 Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Our present pattern of staying on sites with a hook up and cooking in the van means our gas usage is low (1 to 2 x 6kg cylinders a year). This has been partly influenced by problems we were having with the gas fire and the gas mode on the fridge. Both of these issues are now (hopefully) sorted. If this pattern of holidaying were to persist, fitting a gaslow/gas-it system would economically questionable but at least a scarcity of places to top up the cylinder wouldn't really be a problem. However, our plan is to stop restricting ourselves to sites with EHUs plus staying on aires when we visit France and do a bit of wild camping. This will inevitably lead to a significant increase in our usage of gas, particularly when camping 'off grid' in the cooler months. My concern is whether we could end up running out of gas in the highlands of Scotland on cold November night, or a meal becoming ruined when the back up Calor cylinder runs out in the middle of cooking supper. Hence my concerns about how easy it is to find somewhere to fill up with LPG and how abundant LPG fuelling stations are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 We had two Calor backups and when one got below half full, which was not very often, we would use it up in the UK and fit the full new one when we went abroad. We never had any problem finding gas at filling stations in France, although Spain and Germany could take longer to find one, and when we needed diesel, again not desperately, we had the luxury of looking around for somewhere that sold both diesel and lpg. A bit of faffing about I agree but it worked well enough for us and we never run out of gas - or diesel! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 Michael Autogas availability in the UK and abroad is far lower than that of diesel or petrol - but that’s just something that every motorcaavanner with a LPG system that includes a refillable-bottle/tank needs to keep in mind. You originally commented on being unable to identify a single place in the whole of Worcestershire where a user-refillable bottle might be filled. You might try approaching this from another angle and ask Gaslow dealers in Worcestershire where Gaslow bottles can be refilled near you. There’s a map here http://www.gaslowdirect.com/epages/cyujrhdmmu67.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/cyujrhdmmu67/Categories/GaslowDealers If you obtain a refillable bottle, obviously it will need to be filled initially and, if you are going to tour abroad regularly, it would be sensible to refill the bottle before you left the UK. Carrying out both of those tasks would benefit from there being an autogas supplier reasonably close to you and I would have thought that should be the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breakaleg Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 A quick internet search shows the following in Worcester Sherritt Street New Road Spring Lane Malvern Strensham services M5 North And Upto Warren So anyway you approach worcester you would be near a filling station plus quite a few out Kidderminster and Stourport Hope this helps Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tracker Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 It might help to know whereabouts in Worcestershire you are? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul2 Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 Hi Derek's countrywide listing for Malvern is there but I see today countrywide have gone into administration. Thanks Tracker your Evesham one could be very helpfull. On lots of my trips i use the m5 south (I get on and off at j9 via m50) and I often call at Asda just off junction 17 for diesel and they have lpg pumps. Breakage Sheriff st is calor told me no maybe next will be yes!, New rd now a hotel, Spring lane Malvern i've looked but not seen it next time I will stop and walk may be l'm missing it. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 paul2 - 2018-03-08 6:01 PM Hi Derek's countrywide listing for Malvern is there but I see today countrywide have gone into administration... Paul It’s possible that the LPG outlets may survive (see link below) even if the stores do not. https://www.countrywidefarmers.co.uk/completion-of-lpg-sale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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