Refilling Calor gas bottles

nondikass

nondikass

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We're planning a long cruise from the UK , into the Med as far east as Greece, then across the Atlantic to the Caribbean via the Canaries and finally a return via Bermuda and the Azores.
Can anyone offer advice on the possibility of refilling Calor gas butane cyclinders anywhere en route. I do have camping Gaz equipment on board but would also like to use the larger Calor cyclinders if possible.
 
Many years ago my mate and I went on 6 month climbing trip to the alps, took with a frame tent and calor fuelled cooking stove for baser camp duties. We couldnt fill the bottle, no one wanted to know just tried to sell us those poxy frog camping gaz cyls, can't even spell gas right.

We survived by swapping our empty cylinders with brit caravanners who visited our site.

A little belatedly, my apologies to all of you who woke up in Chamonix thirty years ago only to find your gas had run out overnight.
 
In 2002 I crewed on an ARC yacht heading to the West Indies. The owners had converted from Butane to Propane; I think because it is more readily available in that area. They were able to get their bottles refilled in St Lucia.
 
In most countries on mainland Europe you can get any conventional (with a screw-on regulator) gas bottles refilled. This does not mean that you can get an exchange cylinder, in fact I've even had my Calor bottles refilled in Eire on 3 occasions.

This can be a chore, it frequently takes about a week to return the bottle, and these places tend to be few and far between.
A Netherlands friend of mine had a kit which allowed him to take his empty bottles along to the nearest road LPG filling station and refill his bottles - an ability to warm the heart of any Dutchman as it cost about 20% or less of more conventional methods.

I merely change the regulator and cylinder to the local gas supplier and trade the cylinder in as I change countries.

My experience is that this is the cheapest way of cooking with LPG, Camping Gaz is an exorbitant price (usually x2 or x3 of the local champion), only matched in profiteering by Calor gas in the UK.
You can easily convert to propane (equipment burns both, but regulator pressures are different), you save lots of valuable cash and you don't have to comb the byeways to find a refiller. Do make sure, however, that your flexible piping is of the orange, high-pressure variety.
So my advice is to throw away your Calor gas bottles (or sell them, outside the law, at a car-boot sale) and eschew Camping Gaz, in favour of the local supplier.
 
Charles is right - throw away the Calor gas bottles or try to get some money back on them but its not that easy - change to French Camping Gaz - little blue cylinders - I have never bothered to change the regulator in the boat simply added a camping Gaz regulator at the bottle - worked for me but of course changing the main regulator could be a better solution.
You will have a problem filling Calor Gas from the moment you leave the UK. Camping Gaz is available all over the world except the USA where you will need to get one of their cylinders for the period you are there and for New Zealand and Australia who also have their own system and prohibit other types.
Everywhere else you will be able to exchange or refill the Camping Gaz. Very cheap in Spain as the state subsidises gas for domestic use...
 
I had no problem at all getting calor gas bottles filled, in the Middle East. Just went along to a little shop, they were filled whilst you wait. It's a few years ago now, so cant remember exact method. Seem to remember they just piped it in from a bigger bottle at higher level.
 
But

[ QUOTE ]
Charles is right - throw away the Calor gas bottles or try to get some money back on them but its not that easy - change to French Camping Gaz - little blue cylinders - I have never bothered to change the regulator in the boat simply added a camping Gaz regulator at the bottle - worked for me but of course changing the main regulator could be a better solution.
You will have a problem filling Calor Gas from the moment you leave the UK. Camping Gaz is available all over the world except the USA where you will need to get one of their cylinders for the period you are there and for New Zealand and Australia who also have their own system and prohibit other types.
Everywhere else you will be able to exchange or refill the Camping Gaz. Very cheap in Spain as the state subsidises gas for domestic use...

[/ QUOTE ]

Camping Gaz is about the most expensive way of obtaining butane.

Additionally butane won't vaporise <3C, hence a good reason for using propane which is good for down to -13C. Many is the time I've had to turn a fan-heater onto my butane bottles to get cooking.

If you're going to France try Butagaz Cube, fits into the same dimensions as the 4.5kg Calor cylinder, contains 6kg and the refill costs 40% of Camping Gaz - cost of new Cube (square grpolypropylene) with regulator €24 (but a deal in Pornichet). No rust, full about 80% of Calor bottle weight and empty about 30%.

Cube also available Portugal - Spain cheap Butane but bureaucratic nightmare so stick with Gaz - Italy Italgaz, but I've usually diverted to Bonifacio to refill Butagaz Cubes (2 last near enough an 8-month season for me).
 
Re: But

Calor Gas is useless in a cruising boat outside UK waters.

Camping Gaz in Spain is subsidised in the town shops so is easy to obtain.
It is expensive in France but in the rest of the Mediterranean much cheaper for some reason and easily available. You can swap cylinders in Morocco and Tunisia although you may prefer to get the shop to fill your own 'quality' cylinder. It is the one gas bottle that is all over the Med, easy to fill in the Canaries, Madeira, Caribbean etc..

Although I cruise on a small budget chasing around after gas bottles is not high on my list of pleasurable ways to spend an afternoon.

Michael
 
Re: But

Totally agree. Aside from the UK (what's new!) and France, gaz is easily and we think, reasonably cheaply available.

Of course what type you use and the overall cost, depends to some extent on how much you use. We carry five Gaz cylinders while cruising to minimise the trudging about changing the things, and find that one cylinder will last several weeks in hot climes where we don't tend to cook quite as often.
 
Re: But

Bottles dont have to cost you anything. Because you have to have original paperwork to get money back from Calor et al. peeps just chuck them out, usually when clearing their garages. So go down to your council dump (oops sorry "recycling depot") and lo, billions of old bottles put aside. I guess so the council flog em back when they'v collected enough.

For the med Gaz is essential. price varies, best go to local hardware store/garage rather than swindlery.

In spain they sometimes wont exchange for dark blue Croatian Gaz bottles. Guy I met had to spray them light blue!
 
Re: But

In west Africa, Senegal and Gambia Camping Gaz bottles refilled or exchanged. The refill was very cheap, about two euros, but lasted half the time so not so cheap. That's Africa, it's what makes a holiday an adventure /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

Left UK with a 13.5 kg Calor cylinder, but left it on the quay in Peniche when it ran out. It soon disappeared though.

Camping Gaz is expensive but if you work out the cost is twice over a year, how much gas do you actually use? Half of thirty or forty euros is not worth the worry, over a year.

Don't worry about freezing temperatures, that's for riverboat liveaboards in the UK to do /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
My local caravan shop is selling refillable gas containers about the same size as calor, but made by a foreign company, dont know if they would be acceptable for re-fill abroad. Camping gas is such an expensive way to purchase gas.
 
Re: But

Not sure of the point you are trying to make. We cruised full time for seven years in the Med and Caribbean, and used Gaz the whole time. We only found one place where it was a problem to exchange, and that was Vieux Port in St Lucia.

Otherwise it was great. If we push off again, we'll take our five Gaz bottles and do precisely the same again. I do know that other cruising friends had problems refilling their Calor bottles, and even when it was possible, it often meant them tramping/driving a long way to the relevant depot.

In my earlier post, I was making a similar point to Wavelet, in that the advantages or not of either type varies from place to place, and taking into account the actual amount used per year, the higher price of Gaz (it's very cheap in the Med compared to UK/France) makes the difference in cost not worth bothering about.
 
Re: But

In Holland they just filled my calor cylinders, as long as they were in date, germany as well. In UK used Calor. Dumped them in Portugal. In Portugal, just went and bought a large repsol bottle, cheap enough. About £20 including a regulator. Spain go to a flea market, buy a repsol bottle, cheap, €5-10 exchange for a full one (Same regulator as portugal). In Italy do the same, I carry 3 x 13 kg cylinders, but heat my water with gas as well. Never had any difficulty with getting gas in the meddy. Greece easy too. When leaving a country, made sure I had plenty of gas, to give me time to suss out how to get gas in the new country. (ask around other liveaboards).
 
Re:Refilling Calor bottles

Many thanks to all of you above who provided advice about LPG. I'm now minded to leave my Calor bottles at home and set off with a couple of Camping Gaz bottles. Then buy a Spanish cyclinder after the Biscay crossing, topping up as necessary eastbound + westbound in the Med. Does anyone know if these Spanish cyclinders are the same type that you meet in the Canaries?
 
Re:Refilling Calor bottles

Since the Canaries is part of Spain, it seems rather unlikely, that they have a different bottle. Realise as well that in Spain people normally use bottled gas for cooking, although they are installing natural gas pipelines in recent years, but only in the larger cities. Because of the use of bottled gas for cooking, the price of the gas is fixed by the government. This being the reason that gas is cheap in Spain. This probably is valid for Portugal as well.
 
Re:Refilling Calor bottles

Almost every island in the canaries has a gas fill plant - you can take your Camping Gaz to the plant and get it filled for only a few Euro... As stated gas is really cheap in Spain and I have always been able to swop Camping Gaz bottles in shops or supermarkets.
Start off with a couple of Camping Gaz and then get more in Spain and I bet they have the same fitting or converters...
 
Re:Refilling Calor bottles

Yep, can confirm Henk's (Wagenaar) comment. Gaz is readily and cheaply available in the Canaries and bottles are simply exchanged as they are everywhere else in Spain. Pretty cheap too!!
 
Calor Gas Refills - Portugal

In September 2009 I got my Calor Gas bottles refilled in Leixoes overnight at the Galp Gas store at the junction of Rua Dos Herois de Africa and Rua Fresca.
 
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