Refillable gas bottles?

[Pampam]

Is there such a thing as a refillable gas bottle , one that you can take to garage and fill with lpg , or are they all fixed to motorhome ? I know gaslow are refillable but are they able to be transported in back of car ? Thanks pp:)

[Billggski]

Try Safefill, they are lightweight refillable bottles, although some question them as an alternative to the gaslow type.

You can buy valves to refill standard calor bottles on eBay, but again questionable as there is no consensus on their use.

[mikebeaches]

Billggski - 2015-11-21 10:09 PM

You can buy valves to refill standard calor bottles on eBay, but again questionable as there is no consensus on their use.

 

I understood the eBay-sourced refillable valves for Calor or other standard exchangable gas bottles was dangerous because there's no 80%-full cutout mechanism, as in the bottles designed for refilling by members of the public (eg gaslow, alugas, safefill etc).

 

Mike

[mikebeaches]

Billggski - 2015-11-21 10:09 PM

 

Try Safefill, they are lightweight refillable bottles, although some question them as an alternative to the gaslow type.

 

I also think 'Safefill' is the one you require if taking in the boot of the car to fill. But some / many fuel stations may not allow this. However, I believe Safefill have a growing list of suppliers / garages that are happy for their product to be re-filled.

 

Mike

[Derek Uzzell]

Gaslow markets its R67 range of refillable LPG-bottles in “Direct Fill” format

 

http://www.gaslowdirect.com/Cylinders

 

R67 canisters can be plumbed ‘permanently’ into a motorhome’s gas system and have a remote filler.

 

The “Direct Fill” versions can be installed so that they can be filled in situ without being disconnected, or they can be easily disconnected and taken to a service-station selling LPG. (But see caveat on the link above.)

 

Safefill bottles will always need disconnecting to allow refilling to be carried out.

[Brian Kirby]

Pampam - 2015-11-21 10:06 PM............................ I know gaslow are refillable but are they able to be transported in back of car ? Thanks pp:)

If you want to take just the cylinders to a filing station to fill them, as your question seems to imply, I understand that at least some filling stations ban filling portable cylinders with autogas. I would check this before buying.

[Billggski]

http://www.gaslowdirect.com/WebRoot/GroupNBT/Shops/cyujrhdmmu67/MediaGallery/A4_LEAFLET_Direct_Fill_Refillable.pdf

 

Gaslow seem to be responding to customer demand, their valves look very similar to the ones on eBay at about £38.

Safefill come in at about £150 per bottle.

[747]

I change my Energas empties at the local Energas Depot. It seems that there are new regulations in place regarding the transport of Gas Bottles. The Staff will not allow me to carry a bottle in the front of the car (either on the seat with the seatbelt holding it, or in the footwell, jammed in by the passenger seat). They will not hand over a bottle until they are satisfied that it is securely fitted in the rear of the vehicle.

 

Luckily my Skoda Roomster has lashing points for securing loads and I use rope (which I always have in the boot) to tie the bottles off.

[StuartO]

Gaslow and Safefill refill valves are not the same thing as the EBay back-fill valves. Gaslow (and Safefill) bottles all have a device inside them to prevent over-filling, so they are safe in use, even if most petrol stations ban filling them because their staff cannot be expected to distinguish reliably between safe Gaslow/Safefill bottles and someone using a cheating back-flow valve to fill up a rental bottle.

 

The back-fill valves sold on EBay no safety device to prevent the bottle being over-filled and are not really safe to use at all. The instructions which come with them tell you never to fill a bottle unless it is completely empty to start with and then to put in it only the correct volume of gas to avoid over-filling but this is still of a bit hit and miss way of doing things. The danger in over-filling a bottle is that in liquid form (in the bottle) LPG is incmpressable so if the environmental temperatrure rises and the liquid gas in the bottle expands, as it would, the bottle would split due to the expansion force, thereby suddenly releasing all the contents of the bottle, which could lead to a conflagration or even a massive explosion.

[sshortcircuit]

The physical means of filling a cylinder is exactly the same whether it is a standard cylinder or a refillable cylinder so the perceived " dangers" are the same. I would ask that if filling an empty standard cylinder using a very accurate slow moving gauge is better than blindly filling a cylinder relying on an automatic cutt-off valve that have been reported can malfunctioning?

[Derek Uzzell]

Motorcaravanners have been using refillable LPG-canisters for more than 20 years, with the earliest containers being STAKO-branded. These bottles were originally refilled using a screw-on adapter of the type sold by Gaslow for ‘direct filling’ their own products.

 

Adapters are available with connection types that allow different sorts of LPG canister to be refilled (examples here)

 

http://www.lpgshop.co.uk/filling-adapters-lpg-station/

 

Adapters may or may not have an integrated non-return valve and those offered on ebay usually have a male left-hand threaded POL connection to permit refilling of UK-norm propane containers (eg. Calor bottles).

 

http://tinyurl.com/ouxnj7z

 

The Gaslow “Direct Fill” adapter does not have a non-return valve and has a connection that matches the Gaslow bottle’s inlet (that does have a non-return valve) and the inlet of certain other user-refillable bottles. The adapter has been available for several years (though not actively advertised by Gaslow until quite recently) and cannot be used to refill Calor canisters.

 

A “Safefill” user-refillable LPG container was first marketed in 2011 and several different designs of translucent composite containers have been offered since. Details and prices (£159-£174 including postage) are on the Safefill website

 

http://www.safefill.co.uk

 

Since 2011 there has been a good deal of discussion here about Safefill bottles that can be accessed via the forum’s Search facility. One thing worth repeating is that the Safefill bottle’s inlet/outlet (with integrated UK-norm bayonet connector) has a female left-hand threaded POL connection for a gas-pigtail or regulator. This arrangement means that standard non-UK right-hand threaded filling adapters (for refilling abroad) cannot be fitted to a Safefill bottle’s inlet/outlet. A set of three standard non-UK RH-threaded filling adapters can be obtained relatively inexpensively

 

http://www.autogasshop.co.uk/filler-adapter-set-with-cotton-bag-947-p.asp

 

whereas the specialised LH-threaded adapters needed for the Safefill inlet/outlet are significantly dearer

 

http://www.safefill.co.uk/continental-filling-adaptor.html

 

sshortcircuit - 2015-11-22 6:15 PM

 

The physical means of filling a cylinder is exactly the same whether it is a standard cylinder or a refillable cylinder so the perceived " dangers" are the same. I would ask that if filling an empty standard cylinder using a very accurate slow moving gauge is better than blindly filling a cylinder relying on an automatic cutt-off valve that have been reported can malfunctioning?

 

The process involved in user-refilling a gas-bottle varies according to the bottle type and it should be self-evident that the fewer the safety features a gas-bottle has the less potentially ‘safe’ refilling the bottle should be.

 

I’ve refilled various types of LPG bottle and as long as the risks involved in each case are fully appreciated (and nothing goes wrong during refilling!!!) even a basic Calor propane bottle can be refilled without a visit to the A&E.

 

Prior to topping up a Calor propane bottle it must be known how much LPG is already in the bottle and a calculation must then be made to establish how much gas can be safely added. I’ve yet to encounter an ‘exchange only’ metal gas-bottle with an accurate contents gauge, so identifying accurately how much LPG is in a part-full Calor bottle will require first weighing the bottle or using a device like Truma’s “LevelCheck”.

 

Refilling a translucent composite bottle with no 80% cut-off valve (eg. the ones that were marketed by MTH Gas Supplies years ago) is more straightforward as the amount of liquid gas in the bottle can be seen before and after refilling. But overfilling can still easily happen and, if the autogas-gun accidentally detaches from the bottle’s inlet/outlet, or the user forgets to close the bottle’s valve before releasing the gun, a serious gas-leak will occur unless a filling adapter with a non-return valve is being used.

 

Refilling a Safefill bottle is less problematical as it has an 80% cut-off valve and its inlet/outlet has a built-in non-return valve (and one can see how much liquid gas is inside the bottle). But the refilling procedure is more complex than that of, say, a Gaslow R67 bottle that has a dedicated filler-point with a 80% cut-off valve and non-return valve and can be refilled without disconnecting it from the leisure-vehicle.

 

Whether refilling a Safefill bottle might be considered potentially ’safer’ than refilling a Gaslow R67 bottle is moot, but if there is to be concern over 80% cut-off valves malfunctioning at least one should be able to know when a Safefill bottle had been overfilled as it will be visually apparent that the gas-level in the bottle is too high.