Gas bottles in Europe

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strawbs3

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I've had a look on the forum to see if there's anything already here but i couldn't find anything so does anyone have any advice please:

We're hoping to go through France this year and pop out in the med next spring time. My question is do i need any special new bottles or fixings for the gas bottels? At the moment we're on Calor which i'm pretty ceratin is an English company....
 
You cannot buy Calor in France. The most universal alternative is Camping Gaz, available everywhere in the Med and in many other countries. Alternatively you could buy a French bottle(s) when you get there, the cube is quite popular. But if you are then going further on you will need to buy something else. Every one has a different fitting, of course. Some of these may be available in UK, otherwise you may have problems buying them in each country.

Camping Gaz makes it all a lot easier, although still not trouble-free.
 
Calor Gas is only available in the UK. We sailed from UK to Greece in 2008 via France, Spain and Italy and found that you could NOT get Calor Gas bottles refilled in any of these countries. They all did however have Camping Gaz.

You could of course by their equivalent to Calor Gaz but as you would expect each country uses a different regulator so not only would you have to buy a different bottle but also another regulator.
 
Ouch - cost of camping gaz bottle..

A word to the wise. If you trot along to your local camping gaz dealer, they'll charge you upwards of £40 for a 1.9kg bottle. Bit expensive. However, if you go on ebay you shold find loads of bottles on offer at reasonable prices - often one just round the corner from whereever you happen to live.
 
Go for the largest Camping Gaz bottle(s)...the 907 which holds 2.7kg. We've paid anywhere between €8 (Malta, Greece) and €24 (Sardinia)....mostly around €10-12 for exchange cylinders. We mostly eat on board and find that a cylinder typically lasts us approx 1 month.
Be careful when you exchange cylinders that you do not end up with a very rusty one.
 
Since 2008 we've been using gas (before that cooked with diesel) so have only been buying in France and Italy. In Italy, particularly, although camping gaz is readily available it does not come in as big bottles and it is often dearer.

So - we have just forked out for a gas fitting set, which we bought at the boat show yesterday! This is a regulator to fit to the bulkhead inside the gas locker, with a bit of EU standard hose fitting attached, a screw on end and then adaptors/nozzles to fit a wide range of bottles from all over the place. This also makes it much easier to put it on the bottle which can sometimes be apain when twisting the bottle to avoid twisting the regulator etc. Lots of EU certification attached and we bought it from a company who did some work for us on our fridge while we were still here and we trust.

It was about #107 for the whole lot, which wasn't cheap, but less than buying them all seperately and will (we absolutely know) save a load of hassle.
 
So - we have just forked out for a gas fitting set, which we bought at the boat show yesterday!

Hi,

Can you post any further info on this set ?? Would defo be interested in making a purchase.

Thanks
 
Gas

We have 2 x 13 kg calor which we brought from England. We have one Propagaz (Fr) 13 kg we bought (inc bottle) in France.
I also use a 2.7 kg camping gaz for stand-by (left-over from a previous boat)
2.7 k of camping gaz in France cost 26 euros from Leroy Merlin (=b&Q)
13 kg propagaz in France costs 27 euros from Leroy Merlin
It's a no-brainer, even if you have to buy another bottle or two, though it depends on how long you want to stay abroad.
It was always poss to have botts from anywhere re-filled in Corfu and Chios, often by a Greek smoking a cigarette (keep your distance).
The new bottle cost 24 euros.
It is always poss to sell back the UK bottles to homeward boaund brits. H2O in St Jean-de-Losne usually have exchange opportunities.
One can buy special change-over devices which can be fitted with "pig-tails" to fit bottles from most places. No good going to a chandlers, nor to Calar Gas shops. Go to major caravan dealers. You get the basic kit plus French pigtails. Italian pigtails available to order, but often there is a delaay.
Warning British tubing has on it the date of manufacture.
French tubing has the date of expiry (NOT the same )
Date of expiry in form of "a remplacer avant 2011" for exampple.
 
adapter for camping gaz

While in the UK, we switched from our USA tanks to Calor.
Knowing that after the UK we would head to the Med, We
asked Peter at Calor gas in Southhampton (manager, Calor marine?)
and he sold us and adapter fitting with shuttoff for the 907 tank.
no problems, works just fine. it was around 15 pounds.
So far, 907 tanks have been everywhere.
Rickf
 
Camping gas is often extremely expensive.

A modern Euro gas installation uses a 30 mbar bulkhead mounted regulator for butane or propane. You then connect to the type of cylinder you are using with a suitable pigtail with the correct fitting. It is important to mount the regulator higher than the cylinder to prevent liquid gas flowing to it which causes problems.

I am not entirely happy with this arrangement as it involves high pressure gas flowing through flexible hose, but the 'experts' have insisted on it being used for caravans and motorhomes (unless that has been changed).
 
LPG in Europe

By far the most economical way is to buy cylinder and regulator in each country you go to and changeover before you leave.

I found the Butagaz Cube the most useful and reasonably priced form of LPG (it comes in propane and butane/propane mix). That's only available in France and Portugal, but costs the same as a 907 Camping Gaz for just over x2 the gas.

Eric (a Netherlander of conspicuous resource, who made his money holding parties in Amsterdam catacombs) who I met up the Guadiana, had an impressive array of knobs and threads, so he could fill his bottles from a local road-vehicle LPG station. He reckoned this meant his LPG costs were 10% of normal.

I've ended up with 1 x 907 Camping Gaz bottle and x2 Cubes. One of the great benefits of the Cubes is that empty they weigh less than a 907 bottle (they're made of glass-filled polypropylene) and full of 6kg of gas, marginally more than a full 907. Their biggest advantage is that they don't rust!!!

The price of exchange 907 bottles is now about €16, refilling at the local LPG bottle-filling station works out at about €4 mean. I return every 3nd year to a French port (usually Bonifacio) to replenish the Cubes.
Compared to the rest of the Med, France is so refreshingly civilised (providing you stay away from that appalling place Cannes) and probably the cheapest (marina berths, after negotiation, average about €21/night).
I would suggest ditching, selling or donating the Calor bottles - they're heavy, worthless (officially) and awkward shapes.
 
Remember that camping gaz is butane, and that the usual red calor cylinders are propane, so that you will need a new regulator for it.
If you do use your UK propane bottles when you go south, perhaps with the new regulator and adapters ready to change to camping gaz when you need to, it is worth looking for refueling points for LPG powered cars. They use propane, and the refuelers carry every available adapter, to refuel visiting touring RVs etc. They charge about 50p a litre last time I did it. I imagine that is what Eric was doing. There are points in Vila Real and Olhoa on the Algarve, at a chain of self service car wash places called Elefant Azul.
 
Gas nozzles

Sandyman said:
So - we have just forked out for a gas fitting set, which we bought at the boat show yesterday!

Hi,

Can you post any further info on this set ?? Would defo be interested in making a purchase.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Not in the right place at the moment, but will when I have details or even a picture to hand.
 
We have an adaptor that enables us to use Camping Gaz on the regular Calor system that we have. This we inherited from the previous owner and have used satisfactorily when we've run out of Calor abroad. No idea where the adapator came from, assumed that's how you solved the problem. Now I'm wondering if this arrangement is OK or safe?
 
jeanne said:
Remember that camping gaz is butane, and that the usual red calor cylinders are propane, so that you will need a new regulator for it.
If you do use your UK propane bottles when you go south, perhaps with the new regulator and adapters ready to change to camping gaz when you need to, it is worth looking for refueling points for LPG powered cars. They use propane, and the refuelers carry every available adapter, to refuel visiting touring RVs etc. They charge about 50p a litre last time I did it. I imagine that is what Eric was doing. There are points in Vila Real and Olhoa on the Algarve, at a chain of self service car wash places called Elefant Azul.
Click to expand...

I have had bottles refilled on a forecourt in the Algarve, although I was in a camper van many miles from the sea. However in most countries it is illegal to refill a bottle in this way. In France and Spain, both of which are very sensitive about this, you will certainly not get away with it. In Italy a couple of months ago I had to persuade a filling station attendant to refill my installed bottles in my camper, even though they are provided with a plumbed-in fitting on the outside of the van.

Camping Gaz is a mixture of butane and propane. For its cost outside France and UK, mostly of the order of 8 Euros per bottle, is it really worth dragging large bottles all over the place and sneaking them in, hoping to persuade the attendant to waive the rules? A Gaz bottle lasts us a month, mostly cooking aboard every day.
 
vyv_cox said:
I have had bottles refilled on a forecourt in the Algarve, although I was in a camper van many miles from the sea. However in most countries it is illegal to refill a bottle in this way. In France and Spain, both of which are very sensitive about this, you will certainly not get away with it. In Italy a couple of months ago I had to persuade a filling station attendant to refill my installed bottles in my camper, even though they are provided with a plumbed-in fitting on the outside of the van.

Camping Gaz is a mixture of butane and propane. For its cost outside France and UK, mostly of the order of 8 Euros per bottle, is it really worth dragging large bottles all over the place and sneaking them in, hoping to persuade the attendant to waive the rules? A Gaz bottle lasts us a month, mostly cooking aboard every day.
Click to expand...

Vyv, you're very unlikely to get an exchange Camping Gaz for €8 - the going price in Italy is €16 and in Greece they're trying on at €20, though "local" LPG in the same cylinder is €14.

Refilling the bottle is a very different matter, usually €6-8 and you get 3kg not the 2.7 you get in exchange bottles.
As you point out, there is no such thing as "pure" butane, no doubt Refueler could tell us the usual mix.
In principle I agree with you - cheapest and most effective is to buy local gas and the regulator to go with them. However 3kg does me 40 days cooking so I'm not too bothered to get a Gaz bottle refilled. The point is everyone everywhere someone will have the necessary gear to fill Camping Gaz - no-one, anywhere, will refill Calor bottles.
 
For exchanges in Greece I don't recall paying more than 10 euros (must find out the shortcut for the proper sign!) in the past three years, and that was in a very small place on Evia where the shop owner went to great lengths to obtain an exchange for me. In Mourtos, Astakos, Ermioni, Nidri, Limnos and maybe some others we paid 8 euros or slightly less.
 
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