BGD Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 Hi Derek, and thanks for your thoughts. No, the push-on bottle-top regulator on my butane bottles in the MH is without question 30mbar. So are all the push-on bottle top regulators on all the similar butane bottles here in the house. The pressure is actually tamped onto the top of them. I think what has happened is that Spain decided to follow the seemingly international "30 mbar" standard some years ago; and so over the past few years such new regulators are now 30 mbar pressure, whether they be then attached between bottles and (via the flexible orange rubber hoses) gas, consuming items in houses here (of which you may know there are literally millions, as we don't have piped natural gas in Spain), or to bottles in the same way, within motorhomes here. I've had a quick ferret through some of the old paperwork that I got with the motorhome. As an "Aryal" A-class, by the French makers Autostar, it's had a mixed pedigree. It was made in 1992 in their factory in France, but was sold new in Belgium via their Belgian distributors to some Belgian chap. Two years later it was taken by him permanently to Spain, and was imported onto Spanish Plates; and it has lived in Spain ever since. Originally it had a "wet", proper central heating system in it made by Alde, but that system was knackered, and was ripped out by the dealer that the previous owner part-exchanged the MH with, in favour of the new Truma Combi 6 system about 3 years ago.....which is specified as runnable on 30mbar butane or 30mbar propane gas. But all the rest of the gas-using kit is original, 1992 vintage......and is a right mish-mash: 1. Gas hob, made by "Eno" in France - user manual says run it on 28mbar butane, or 37mbar propane. 2. "Foursmev 311" gas oven, made by Smev - user manual also says run it on 28mbar butane or 37bar propane. 3. 3-Way Fridge, made by Electrolux - user manual says" the correct gas pressure is 30mbar". So, I've got the Combi running on the correct, 30mbar pressure, but maybe on the "wrong" type of gas for my needs; I've got the fridge running on it's specified 30 mbar pressure, and I've got the hob and oven running on 30, rather than their specified 28 mbar pressure. Yet, with the exception of the very rare "trip-out" of the Truma Combi in space heating mode when the butane bottle runs low, all works fine and dandy.............. Evidence does seem to be pointing to insufficient butane gas supply to feed the big demand of the Truma when it's in 6kw burning space heating mode whilst the gas bottle level is low, and ambient air temperature is also low (which is exactly when you need to put the bloody heating on!). I think I'm minded to do an experiment in the coming days whilst it's cold here: to source a 30mbar propane bottle-top regulator, and an empty secondhand CEPSA or REPSOL propane bottle, get the bottle swopped for a full one, and then try out all the gas-using kit with that..............if the kit works that'll do for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 Butane has slightly more calorific value. BUT PROPANE is the way to go as it does not stop evaporating when the bottle gets cold. Simples. C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Leake Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 We use the lightweight 6Kg cylinders to save weight. They are only available with propane so thats what we use. We are away a lot but use hookups so gas usage is low. One cylinder every three years. Having a level gauge is handy on these cylinders since most of the time this means we only need to carry one cylinder with the spare left at home hooked up to the BBQ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 BGD - 2012-01-28 2:42 PM Hi Derek, and thanks for your thoughts. No, the push-on bottle-top regulator on my butane bottles in the MH is without question 30mbar. So are all the push-on bottle top regulators on all the similar butane bottles here in the house. The pressure is actually tamped onto the top of them... Excellent - assuming that Spain's standard pressure for propane regulators is also 30mbar, just swap to propane and that should cure your heater-related problem. A Combi 6 is a thirsty beast, using a Truma-quoted 480 grammes of gas per hour at full throttle, so you'll really need propane in cold weather to meet that level of demand. My previous Herald motorhome had the old 28mbar/37mbar UK standard gas system and its hob and oven matched this. However, when I looked more closely at the hob/oven specifications it became evident that both were designed to operate within a fairly wide pressure 'window' that would have allowed them to be run at a 30mbar compromise butane/propane pressure. Anyway, as you've been running all your appliances at 30mbar already without problems (other than the heater shut-downs), switching to propane at 30mbar should be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyishuk Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 :D (Have to start with that for 'elf n safety) When I was a lad working on site, On cold days when the dumpers would not start, standard practice was to pour some diesel on the ground, a lit rag placed on the puddle and let the flames warm the sump and engine ! Generaly worked (apart from one day when the tyres caught fire) Rgds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted January 30, 2012 Author Share Posted January 30, 2012 A quick update, which just might be helpful for Brits venturing over here to Spain: I had a chat with the local CEPSA gas bottle supplier this morning. He advised that the two big petrochemical Companies in Spain (Repsol and Cepsa) have, some time ago now, settled on a national standard of 30mbar regulator pressure for all domestic gas bottles, butane and propane. He said there are of course still millions of older 29mbar, and 28mbar butane bottle-top regulators in use across Spain, all in use without problems, but the new ones are all 30mbar, whether for use on butane or propane gas bottles. Apparently the "standard" 30mbar bottle-top push-on regulators fits both propane and butane bottles, whether sourced from CEPSA (usually the silver aluminium, 11 kg propane or 12.5kg butane bottles) or Repsol (the orange, steel, 11kg propane or 12.5 kg butane bottles). They also fit the very recently introduced "K6" smaller, plastic 6kg butane bottles from Repsol. It seems there is finally now a universality on all bottle-nozzles and regulators, at least here in Spain (and the same standard applies across Portugal too). Present prices, for exchanging an empty bottle for a full one in Spain, whether with Repsol or Cepsa ('cos the price is State-controlled nationally): 11kg propane = €13.27 12.5kg butane = 15.10 (These prices are for Spain only: I know from recent experience that Portugal is much more expensive - I think it was about €22.90 to swop a 12.5 kg bottle there a couple, of weeks ago. I've recently noticed that quite a lot of Brits and others who come down here, especially if wild-camping rather than relying on the umbilical EHU on campsites, have a set-up in the gas cupboard where there is a "T" with a valve from in-land of their UK bulkhead regulator. Attached to that "branch is a length of the orange flexi-hose, and on the other end a standard Spanish push-on bottle-top regulator. Such regulators with a length of hose and two jubilee clips costs maybe 10 euros as a kit, and are sold in every DIY shop, hardware shop, and big hypermarket across the country. Someone else had a similar "branch" setup, but his branch was Teed-in UP-stream of his UK bulkhead regulator/valve, and he'd got hold of and fitted tot he other end of his flexi-hose, a " dummy" Spanish regulator, that fits on the Spanish bottles, but doesn't have the regulator gubbins inside. These might exist in Spain, but I've never noticed them in any hardware store here. So equipped, they can just swop between Spanish and UK bottles as required. If you can hook yourself up to such Spanish bottles, you've then got to actually get hold of a bottle here. Visitors will hopefully know NOT to try to take out a proper contract to get hold of any of these bottles for the first time without one to swop, from any petrol station or other retail outlet. Paperwork will be a nightmare for you as it's in Spanish, you don't have the required Spanish home address or NIE number; and cost is high. Instead do what millions of people do when they want another bottle: just buy one second-hand off someone else. Go to any "Rastro" (car boot sale) or look in local papers, or in second-hand shops, or even on campsites, for a used empty bottle. Going rate is about 8 to 10 euros. Take that to the garage, and they swop it without question, you just pay the above amount at the till. Even the Repsol visiting home delivery gas man will usually sell you one for cash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesFrance Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 BGD - 2012-01-30 4:42 PM Someone else had a similar "branch" setup, but his branch was Teed-in UP-stream of his UK bulkhead regulator/valve, and he'd got hold of and fitted tot he other end of his flexi-hose, a " dummy" Spanish regulator, that fits on the Spanish bottles, but doesn't have the regulator gubbins inside. These might exist in Spain, but I've never noticed them in any hardware store here. So equipped, they can just swop between Spanish and UK bottles as required. This is what I now use. The bottle fitting will connect to a modern high pressure pigtail and I bought one from the accessory shop opposite Camping Raco here in Benidorm. I had a problem connecting to the usual Cepsa alloy butane cylinder, as I have a Truma high pressure hose with the green button which extends from the bottle connector and interferes with the top of the Cylinder. Cepsa have now introduced a new type of butane cylinder which has a plastic top with cutaways on two sides. I now have to use this type which is the same size but is very hard to find as yet. The local petrol station usually has about 50 alloy bottles but only 2 of this new type. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 Thanks again to all who have offered advice on this.............I thought I'd provide an update on the situation...........and a salutory lesson for me in overlooking something obvious.........doh!! I decided that, on balance, it's probably the fact that my Truma heater calls for a big flow of gas to deliver its 6 kilowatts of heat; and thus when the bottle is maybe 2/3rds empty, and it's below maybe 6 degrees outside, and the bottle has been running for a while and thus making itself even colder, the gas remaining in it then becomes just too viscous to be sucked through at the massive rate the Truma needs when in space-heating mode, so it trips out. So I devised a Cunning Plan: I would switch from the Repsol orange 12.5kg butane bottles to their 11kg propane bottles.....to avoid the "viscosity" issue of propane. There'd also be a small side benefit in that I'd save overall about 3kgs of weight (unlike some of the tiny weeny gas cupboards I've seen on other MH's, the capacity of our gas cupboard is brilliant: it can take two of the big 12.5kg Repsol gas bottles side by side). So off I go over the next few days, to find, and then buy, two secondhand Repsol propane bottles (Repsol garages won't let you swop an empty butane bottle for a full propane one here). Eventually got hold of two of the propane ones, and then a few days ago thought I'd nip down to my local Repsol fuel station to swop them for full ones, and then put them in the MH. Problem. Garage had loads of butane bottles, but no propane. No worries; I'll just drive a few kms to the next Repsol garage in the nest village. Problem. Garage had loads of butane bottles but no propane ones. Same story at third garage. Same at fourth garage. Eventually, the following day, I went all the way over to the regional Repsol warehouse/distribution centre, and yes, they had propane bottles, so I bought two of them. Aha!! But then, just as I was leaving, I started chatting to one of their drivers, and asked him why propane was so popular that there were no bottles of the stuff at Repsol garages anywhere locally? Then the bombshell............ He said that it ain't that the propane bottles are so popular that they've sold out, it's that they are so unpopular that their garages do not stock them. Not some garages, but in his delivery region none stock them. Ever. Everyone uses butano, no-one uses propano, so it is only butano that Repsol stocks at it's garages right across Spain and Portugal; apparently he's never seen a propano bottle anywhere apart from at their big regional distribution centre warehouses where they also supply all sorts of weird gases to industry/welding shops etc. So, I've just bought two bottles of gas to put in the MH which might or might not solve my very occasional Truma-trip-out problem but which, once empty whilst we are on tour anywhere, will then be almost impossible to swop for full ones of the same gas, and which Repsol won't accept if wanting a full bottle of butane instead. Oops. Big oops. That'll teach me to just assume, rather than actually checking. Because there are always millions of orange bottles available here at every Repsol garage across the country, and they even do home deliveries of the things too, and because both the butane and propane ones are both orange ( the propane ones just have a thin black band around their middle), I'd just assumed when I saw piles of the things in garages that all garages would stock both type as a matter of course. So, retired to house to lick wounds, and actually do some research on the gas marketplace over here. Eventually I have now come up with Cunning Plan Number Two....to seek to solve the gas viscosity issue, and cut down on weight too: Use butane, but warm it up. Cepsa is the other big, national fuel Company over here. They are also big in Portugal. They do exactly the same type of bottled gas as Repsol, with exactly the same bottle top so any Spanish bottle-top regulator will fit them, BUT, their 12.5 kgs butane bottles are aluminium. Much lighter. Remember that with a "12.5kgs" gas bottle, that's 12.5 kgs of actual gas you are buying; the weight of the empty bottle is entirely separate. (On the Repsol bottles the actual individual bottle weight is printed on the bottle, and can be anything between maybe 13.2 kgs and 14.4 kgs) Cepsa also stock these lighter weight aluminium bottles all over the place, but only, once again, in butane gas form. Just like Repsol, they do propane 11kgs bottles too, but the stockists of these are rare as hen's teeth. Now, a couple of people had mentioned warming the gas bottles. One said that the way the design of their blown air heating system overcame this "gas-freezing" issue was by having a small pipe leading off from one of the main blown air heater tubes, into the gas cupboard. Thus as the Truma heater is sucking in vast amounts of gas on a cold night, and thus acting to chill the bottle that it comes from evn lowet than ambient temperature, so a tiny proportion of the heat that the boiler generates gets wafted into the gas cupboard, to warm the bottles there. Like it. Like it a lot. So, I've had a fettle. I've been fettling, and I've done a fettle. As luck would have it, one of the hot-air tubes goes under the MH for a stretch, right past the side of the bottom part of my gas cupboard. So a very simple job to remove some of the insulation, put in a home-made "T", and run a small pipe into the base of the cupboard, then refit the insulation. Also, nip out and buy a couple of empty Cepsa aluminium bottles secondhand ( I got 4, for 5 euros each, which is a result, as they are normally double that, go to local Cepsa seller in village and swop for full ones, connect them up, and try the system out. It's great! The pipe is small enough that only a faint "waft" of warm air comes into the bottom of the gas cupboard, but that doesn't reduce the amount of warm air coming out of that pipes eventual exit point in the MH. So, fingers crossed that this should stop any butane viscosity issues but still allow us to replace bottles as they run out whilst anywhere in Spain or Portugal. One added benefit is that by using these two aluminium bottles, I'm saving almost 10kgs in total weight, and manhandling them is a LOT easier too. But the final proof will come whilst we're away on another 4 week tour down south again, starting next week, and we get a gas bottle down to nearly empty, on a cold night, with the Truma set to blown-air heating mode................. *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syd Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Bruce You may already know this but just in case Beside Benidorm's large outdoor market there is a pretty large bottled gas supplier, not too sure which one it is but maybe worth a look Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepe63xnotuse Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 ...well I'm waiting for someone to suggest you just refill 'em yourself,using a fitting off ebay... (lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 Syd - 2012-02-14 11:07 AM Bruce You may already know this but just in case Beside Benidorm's large outdoor market there is a pretty large bottled gas supplier, not too sure which one it is but maybe worth a look Thanks for that Syd - yep, those supply dumps are dotted about all over Spain. There is a big Repsol one just north of Benissa on the N332, which is a lot closer to me than Benidorm. In addition, the local Repsol van man calls at our little estate of villas here each Tuesday, so I can get bottles home-delivered too. The issue for me was really about getting hold of bottles when we are away from home, chugging around the wilds of the rest of Spain and Portugal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 pepe63 - 2012-02-14 11:57 AM ...well I'm waiting for someone to suggest you just refill 'em yourself,using a fitting off ebay... (lol) I'd actually be perfectly happy to do that, if I could find a fitting, then find a network of bulk gas suppliers who'd allow me to do so.......... ;-) For now, I think I'll settle for exchanging my empty Cepsa bottles for ready-filled ones at any of the tens of thousands of Cepsa bottled butane gas retail outlets across Spain. It's not expensive here across Spain; the national Government-set price is currently : to swop a bottle of 12.5 kgs of butane gas, via Cepsa or Repsol is €15.10. (But it is much pricier in Portugal for some reason, about €24 to swop the exact same bottles over there) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 BGD - 2012-02-14 10:27 AM ...Use butane, but warm it up. Cepsa is the other big, national fuel Company over here. They are also big in Portugal. They do exactly the same type of bottled gas as Repsol, with exactly the same bottle top so any Spanish bottle-top regulator will fit them, BUT, their 12.5 kgs butane bottles are aluminium. Much lighter. Remember that with a "12.5kgs" gas bottle, that's 12.5 kgs of actual gas you are buying; the weight of the empty bottle is entirely separate. (On the Repsol bottles the actual individual bottle weight is printed on the bottle, and can be anything between maybe 13.2 kgs and 14.4 kgs) Cepsa also stock these lighter weight aluminium bottles all over the place, but only, once again, in butane gas form. Just like Repsol, they do propane 11kgs bottles too, but the stockists of these are rare as hen's teeth. Now, a couple of people had mentioned warming the gas bottles. One said that the way the design of their blown air heating system overcame this "gas-freezing" issue was by having a small pipe leading off from one of the main blown air heater tubes, into the gas cupboard. Thus as the Truma heater is sucking in vast amounts of gas on a cold night, and thus acting to chill the bottle that it comes from evn lowet than ambient temperature, so a tiny proportion of the heat that the boiler generates gets wafted into the gas cupboard, to warm the bottles there. Like it. Like it a lot. So, I've had a fettle. I've been fettling, and I've done a fettle. As luck would have it, one of the hot-air tubes goes under the MH for a stretch, right past the side of the bottom part of my gas cupboard. So a very simple job to remove some of the insulation, put in a home-made "T", and run a small pipe into the base of the cupboard, then refit the insulation. Also, nip out and buy a couple of empty Cepsa aluminium bottles secondhand ( I got 4, for 5 euros each, which is a result, as they are normally double that, go to local Cepsa seller in village and swop for full ones, connect them up, and try the system out. It's great! The pipe is small enough that only a faint "waft" of warm air comes into the bottom of the gas cupboard, but that doesn't reduce the amount of warm air coming out of that pipes eventual exit point in the MH. So, fingers crossed that this should stop any butane viscosity issues but still allow us to replace bottles as they run out whilst anywhere in Spain or Portugal. One added benefit is that by using these two aluminium bottles, I'm saving almost 10kgs in total weight, and manhandling them is a LOT easier too. But the final proof will come whilst we're away on another 4 week tour down south again, starting next week, and we get a gas bottle down to nearly empty, on a cold night, with the Truma set to blown-air heating mode................. *-) The French company BOREL marketed a warm-air bottle-heater to combat potential cold-weather problems when motorcaravans use French high-butane-content autogas. There are details on this link: http://accessoires-camping-car.fr/produit.php?cat=25&souscat=63&pid=3450 The product also used to appear on BOREL's own website, but no longer. I suspect that, as the heating 'slipper' demands that a hot-air duct be led fron the motorhome's interior into the gas locker, the concept is iffy regarding French gas-system installation regulations. Either that or its omission from the website means that nobody bought it. There is an obvious inherent flaw with this concept as, if the butane is sufficiently cold to begin with that it won't vaporise, then the gas heater won't work and, if the gas heater won't work, there'll be no hot air to warm up the bottle sufficiently to make the butane vaporise. (The gas-locker heating idea has been discussed in depth on this forum, but I think it was in an earlier forum incarnation.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 After a bit of Searching - that revealed that gas-locker/gas-bottle heating has come up quite a few times - I managed to track down the following thread that was the one I had in mind in my previous posting: http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=2803&posts=16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BGD Posted February 14, 2012 Author Share Posted February 14, 2012 Useful stuff Derek - thanks for the link. I'm not worried about breaching the principle of separation between habitation area and gas cupboard, as in my case the Truma heated air pipe runs under the van right next to the bottom of the gas cupboard at the point where I've Teed into it to then run my very short length of flexible plastic pipe (actually a butchered sink drainage pipe), in a tight "U" shape down round and up into the bottom of the cupboard. Additionally we've got bottle-top regulators on our gas bottles here in Spain, so there's no high pressure gas piping at all in the gas cupboard. If there's ever a fire in our MH, I'll be legging it, to a VERY distant distance, not worrying unduly about this extra bit of 1" plastic pipework. Yes, there's probably still some minuscule extra risks I guess. But compared to all the other risks, they don't register on my radar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted February 14, 2012 Share Posted February 14, 2012 Hi BGD The problem as I see it - is that the extended heater duct comes in at the bottom of the Gas Bottle cupboard. if you get a Gas Leak the Gas could drop into the extened tube & thereafter into the rest of the Heating Duct & eventually into the habitation area of the motorhome. Is it feasible to have the extension piece terminating (say) quarter /half way up the cupboard interior, so taht any Gas Leak will disperse under the van via the normal vents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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