Type of gas bottle

If I was starting out now I'd get a single Safefill and pick up an empty small propane bottle on ebay or similar to exchange if you feel a backup is essential.

Two calorlite rentals go a long way towards the purchase of a Safefill but as we were give two as part of the deal when buying the van I can't make the figures stack up to change now

There is no doubt that over  the (very) long term Safefill is the route to be taken but for most people the break point is many many years away

 Gas bottles  can be bought off EBay for around £10 and if on EHU , assuming a very conservative usage of 80 days and refill costs of £20 ,equates to a cost of 25p per day

I would +1 for the second hand Calor bottle route, you can exchange any size calor Bottle for any other and swap between butane and propane too, so if you can buy any empty calor bottle on ebay etc I strongly suspect it'll be a lot cheaper than starting a new 'bottle contract'.  

I don't know for a fact whether you can swap a metal bottle for a calor lite though, so if you definitely want 'lite' that might not work for you.

 I carry a Camping Gaz bottle with an adaptor to use as a spare (I use it for my gas BBQ too), it's smaller and lighter than a second Calor bottle.  camping gaz is widely available on the continent too (you can't buy Calor abroad, which might be another consideration for you if you intend to long European hols).  

We normally use our c/van for well over a hundred night away per year always on sites /cls with ehu and one 6kg propane last into the next near,so for us the set up costs of Safefill is not worth it as it would take years to get any return 

I agree guys, to go with Safefill or not comes down to useage.

I expect to have my tenth fill up next year so it has taken 3 years so for me it's been a good buy.

Forget to say, I only have one and carry an empty calor just in case if something happens, I will not be caught out.

I agree guys, to go with Safefill or not comes down to useage.

I expect to have my tenth fill up next year so it has taken 3 years so for me it's been a good buy.

Forget to say, I only have one and carry an empty calor just in case if something happens, I will not be caught out.

How does an empty Calor provide a continuing supply of gas? 

 I have an adaptor to use my BBQs Camping Gaz 907, but if I ever had to use its gas for the van the cost would make me weep.

You thought you had me there Ocid but you havn't

Because you can see through the Safefill, you know exactly when it's going to run out leaving you plenty of time to get the Calor swapped for a full one and hooked up.

Hi all.

Thanks for all the replies and thoughts.  It's making me lean toward spending the extra and getting a single Safefill bottle for now - the largest one that I can get into my locker. I'm not sure of the room in the locker, but I suspect that the 12Kg bottles will fit with no problem. They're the ones that come 1/2 way up your leg, right?

My plans are to go away mostly at weekends and mostly on sites with an EHU, however there will be times when I want to attend astronomy star parties, these tend to be in places like Keilder forest.  I don't think that EHU will be available there, so it'll be ralling condistions.  The info on how long a bottle will last from some of the posts above give me an idea that one bottle will be enough for now.  With maybe a second bottle added later on.

Calor lite is still in the frame.  But I think the other bottles are out of the question.

My thought here is why carry more weight than needed?  Whilst I have my caravan packed out with stuff, I'm still being consious of the weight.  Especially as the gas locker is at the front of the van.  This combined with space wheel (same locker)  and bike rack - on A Frame in front of locker (continental style) means that my noseweight is also under consideration here.

We generally use Club Sites with EHUs and only use Calor gas for cooking so we use very little and the cost is hardly worth worrying about. Bearing this in mind it's worth thinking about having two smaller bottles where a quick switch-over can be made and the empty bottle filled when convenient.

If you look at the Safefill website they give accurate measurements of the various cylinder sizes.

Interestingly the Safeill cylinders are the same but modified (by the factory not Safefill) cylinders as used by BP Gas, Macgas, and the french calypso cylinder.