"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!"

steve_cronin

steve_cronin

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\"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

How many of you guys who still sail in the UK are currently saying this?

I have just, this morning swapped a Gaz 907 cylinder (2.72Kg) and a Calor Patio Gas (13kg) and they were within a few pence, the same price at £18.60 each.

How does anyone afford gas for a boat anymore. Surely anyone running a Propex on Camping Gaz is either a fool or an irreponsible Lottery winner?

The last cylinder I bought in Greece cost me €4.75 at a minimarket on Levkada last October. The other 907 cylinder I have at home for garden cooking has the price £6.90 written on it - it couldn't have been that long ago that I swapped THAT one so what's happened?

I'm stingey with the gas in Greece, using shore power or the inverter to power the electric kettle or make toast but I think that if I were sailing in the UK again I'd have to consider a policy of "cold drinks and dry bread only" from now on.

Jeeze! Hideously exhorbitant marina prices AND being ripped off for gas. The things you guys put up with.

How's about yachting Monthly asking a few questions of calor Gas UK Ltd?

Steve Cronin



Steve Cronin
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

I was going to make myself a filling rig to decant from cheaper large Calor bottles.
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

The price of oil and gas as we all realise has gone through the roof in the last year. We use bulk propane and the cost has risen about 66% in the last year. I think you will find that the cost of small cyliders rises disproportionately and one thing is certain, the price wont come down.
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

With enough room to do so, last year I switched from Gaz907 - 2.75kg to Calor 4.5 kg. The refill price for both is about the same. Guess why I did it? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

Actually, I was going to ask: 'Patio Gas' is Propane, which seems much more sensible for UK climate (esp. winter) than Butane. And you get an indicator to show how full the bottle is. Is there any reason why this should not be the way to go for boat use? And it seems (relatively) cheaper.
 
Don\'t have a problem.

We use a Taylor's paraffin stove. At the most expensive ironmongers, you pay about £4.20 a gallon. One pint runs one burner at full heat for 8 hours...
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

What I remember about rural Greeece is that just about every mustachioed old lady dressed in black uses cylinder gas at home, so there's a much bigger market, and not just an itsybitsy marine/caravaning one. Bigger volumes = lower prices and little old ladies (poor), yachtpersons (rich).
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

What I recall from living in the UK, is that every house is heated by gas and every plate of fish 'n chips is cooked on gas down at the local chippy. So, also a huge market.
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

Very few use 2.72kg cylinders. Often now there is a community bulk tank up the hillside serving a few houses or even a conventional supply grid. In some places 907s aren't stocked anymore except where yachts/caravans/motorhomes are expected in summer.

Steve Cronin



Steve Cronin
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

The last house we lived in was heated by Calor, in bulk, that wasn't funny!

One year we got home at the end of a weekend away to find that a branch of a tree had been blown off in a gale, breaking our gas supply pipe (copper). The contents of the newly filled 2 tons of gas had escaped! I think that cost about £600 to refill!
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

I know a bit about Calor. In the last 12 month they have hiked their prices about five times sighting crude oil price inflation as the reason. They called these “surcharges” in the trade. Recently they consolidated all the surcharges and called it the new wholesale price – so no reduction there.

Calor have traditionally seen themselves as supplies to the trade – gas for torches for roofers and gas for heat for cups of tea for the road men. A new market emerged five + years ago - the retail market, (us).

They only have two type of gas - Propane and Butane and a number of bottle sizes that they can fill it into. The two gasses need two different types of regulators.

To make the best of this new market Calor decided to paint their existing bottles a new colour – green- and call it Patio gas (propane) and BBQ gas – blue- (Butane). In doing so they hiked the prices for each bottle by around 20%.

If you want to use Propane don’t buy Patio gas but the same bottle size (13Kg) in propane and get the retailer to supply an appropriate new regulator (they have made the same regulator with a different connection [snap on as apposed to threaded] to stop you seeing this as a route to saving money – new reg about £9.00).
This way you will have yourself the 20% and the new regulator pays for itself at the first refill.

Same with BBQ gas buy 7Kg Butane it’s the same, in this case even the regulator is the same.
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

Have just got back from a camping holiday in Normandy, and had a look at 904 / 907 Camping Gaz cylinders in the camping section of the 'Auchan' supermarket just outside Le Havre.

The cost for a 907 (including the bottle) was around 33 Euros (£20 approx) - not sure about the exchange/refill price.

Can you ever imagine being able to buy gas cylinders like that in your local Tesco /ASDA - the HSE Stasi would just love that!
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

Cost about 12 Euro in Portugal so its not just Brits being ripped off. Bottles are marked with country of purchase to stop people making money by returning to a different country for 50% refund within a year.
Propane has a lower calorific value so may not be good value for year round use.

Anyone useing refillable bottles that can be topped up at petrol stations?
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

In the UK a part of the answer is to avoid being charged an arm and a leg for camping gas and only pay an arm for calor. Ironic since the French Camping gas company took over Calor and stopped them exporting.
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

Of course another alternative is to switch to diesel. The new diesel stoves look pretty smart but rather expensive. I guess they might take a few years to pay for themselves, but perhaps worth thinking about if you're replacing a gas stove.
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

It is still chaper to cook on gas on the boat than go out each evening. Petrol in Scotland is now over £1 per litre so it aint just the gas that costs. We've used 2 cylinders this year over our weekend sails and 5 weeks aboard. At an average of say £15 pp per meal out that would have cost around £500 - our calor tank at home could be almost filled for that.
 
Re: \"Eating on Board - No Fear; MUCH Too Expensive!\"

I posted a serious question about a year back as to what people thought of diesel ovens and the overwhelming response was......crap!
 
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