gas bottles for europe

[kevin hawkins]

can anyone help

my camper can only take a 3.9 kg propane bottle in the gas locker when we go out side the uk i am constantly worring we will run out dose any one know if camping gas make a bottle this size and is it widely available on the continent or has any one got any better ideas.

any help much appreciated.

kind regards granddad *-)

[spospe]

We take the 4.5 kg Calor cylinders and as a result get an extra 0.6kg capacity per bottle. We have never had a problem with the gas not vaporising.

 

The largest Camping Gaz bottle is only 2.9 kg and these are butane only.

 

Camping Gaz would be a useful backup, as it is widely available.

 

Probably a better idea would be to investigate buying a continental cylinder, along with the connecting pipe, as this would overcome your capacity problem.

[Bill Ord]

Hi,

Camping Gaz is available widely in Europe but is very expensive compared to locally sourced bottled gas. The answer for you is probably to use French or wherever you are going bottles of a suitable size. Twinny comes to mind which I've seen in many French supermarkets. I think these should fit your gas locker. You can check as I believe the "Barbecue" gas sold in the UK is the same size. Make sure before you go that you have a suitable adaptor or regulator to enable you to fit it to your system otherwise it will mean a trip to a caravan/motorhome dealer to get one.

Bill Ord

[starvin marvin]

As Bill says the french have bottles of all various sizes and shapes and you would have no problem buying one at a supermarket. Spain is another kettle of fish. The best way to avoid the trauma of trying to "officially" buy a cylinder is to go to a flea market/car boot sale and buy a gas cylinder, these are certain to be larger than the bottles you currently use. They will be a lot cheaper a 13kg refill is about 13E whereas a Camping gaz 907 refill costs are 12E for approx 3kg of gas.

 

You will always be able to get rid of a Spanish bottle by selling onto another Brit to get back the 10E an empty bottle will have cost you.

 

Finally you have a refillable cylinder or tank fitted. It will take at a guess a min of 25 complete refills to get your investment back on the cheaper bulk gas.

 

 

[Derek Uzzell]

Kevin:

 

The largest capacity Campingaz container is the "907". This holds 2.72kg of butane and is 270mm high x 210mm diameter. As has already been said, the 907 is reasonably widely available across Europe but is not very good value on a price per kg of gas basis.

 

The smallest Calor cylinder is 340mm high x 240mm diameter and holds either 3.9kg of propane or 4.5kg of butane.

 

If your motorhome's gas-carrying capability is rigidly limited dimensionally to the Calor 3.9kg/4.5kg size of cylinder, then I'm doubtful that you'll find a 'foreign' cylinder that will be suitable. You might come across one in Germany (where there is a wide variety of bottle sizes), but French 5kg(propane)/6kg(butane) containers are all likely to be too large.

 

French 'half-height' steel bottles - Twiny, Elfi, Malice, etc. - all have a height and diameter of around 310mm, while the French 5kg/6kg composite "Le Cube" bottle is 360mm high x 280mm wide. If there's a sub-5kg/6kg capacity French LPG bottle, then I've yet to encounter it.

 

It used to be possible to obtain in the UK a very compact composite refillable LPG container that probably could have directly replaced your present 3.9kg bottle, but I'm pretty sure these are no longer marketed here.

 

I think most people in your predicament would just keep a Campingaz 907 cylinder as a back-up, plus the necessary bits and pieces to allow it to be used on your motorhome if the Calor bottle(s) ran out.

 

(There is the option of refilling your present Calor canister with 'autogas' while abroad, but an adapter to allow this to be done would cost around £50 and there are very real legal and safety implications in doing this.)