How much do you pay for your gas ?

I would agree that SAFEFILL etc will never surpass the car market sales but hey! The gas conversions for cars is dead- where to from here? We will always be able to get gas- just all depends on how far we have to drive to get it? It's a chicken and egg situation at the moment- if there are few filling points people will not buy Safefill etc, if they dont buy safefill it will remain as it is - not as many filling points as there should be! 

Replenished my Safefill 7.5kg on way back from Norfolk....£5.77... laughing all the way home ....

Write your comments here...and therein lies the problem for the retailer. Cost to install & maintain pump, storage tank etc. All for someone to come in and spend £5.77 of which probably 80% us made up of costs, vat etc. So he may have madev12p, would you do it?  We only buy small amounts so unless the car market picks up I doubt there is any longevity in garages supplying Lpg.  Could be a good idea for caravan/motorhome dealers to install tanks but probably make more from calor so where us the incentive as for that all you need us a locked cage.

"Could be a good idea for caravan/motorhome dealers to install tanks but probably make more from calor so where us the incentive as for that all you need us a locked cage."

sort of agree with the first part, Michael but not the second part about just a cage ...

serving customers with Calor cannisters is quite hands on and labour intensive, if you sold a lot the 'man in charge' might be a bit busy....opening cages, carrying bottles about, taking cash etc...

i belong to an onganisation called Countrywide Farmers (im not a farmer, nor have anything to do with them) who sell LPG, from dispensers at interesting locations....our local one is close to the scrapyard a couple of miles away....

i have an electronic 'key' and a PIN number and an account already set up, paid directly at the end of each month...

i go to the pump, put in my key, type in my PIN, dispense the LPG.....done....no people involved and pumps scattered around...though not what i would actually call ' nationwide'.

still, it shows that there is a market, the kit is in place and the labour costs can be extremely low....

i dont use them that often, as i know for a couple of LPG stations handy to most routes i take....but they are there as a good back up...no fee to join.

as in your first point, perhaps a group could rent space at a few strategic caravan dealers, it still seems to be paying for NF.

BB you only need a cage, they are not selling gas 24*7 maybe 5 or 6 bottles a day on a busy day??

I saw the farmers thing but it s not near me, and even you cannot spend that much on gas so I still think the samll amounts we as caravaners/MH'ers does not jsutify someone installing an LPG pump.  Our M/H was full when we collected it and is still in the green and we ahve been in it for about 30 nights, I know its summer so no heating yet but even if I fill it from empy its 22l so at 60p a litre thats only £13, still cheaper than calor but expensive for my local garage to fit a pump just in case I pop in....

Whilst it will I am sure remain extensively in use for domestic home heating, I can't see them sending a tanker over to your home to top up your 10 kg refillable even if left till bone dry; for sure not if a Calor contractor 

Whilst it will I am sure remain extensively in use for domestic home heating, I can't see them sending a tanker over to your home to top up your 10 kg refillable even if left till bone dry; for sure not if a Calor contractor 

No, not to fill a 10KG cylinder, but they would to refill a 1000/2000L tank at a caravan dealer!!

Anyway, discussion has got me thinking.... I wonder how long it will be until gas is dead for caravanning completely... With the speed of development of technology, and especially electric cars, battery technology is improving a lot... higher capacity, smaller, lighter batteries. Also, solar panel technology is improving. How many years before we have a combination of battery and solar panel which means that we don't need gas at all, and can do everything of battery?

Who knows but I would not let such concerns stop me buying a Safefill now if I used enough gas to make it worthwhile.

LPG is not going away in the next decade (or two) at the very least.

Anyway, discussion has got me thinking.... I wonder how long it will be until gas is dead for caravanning completely... With the speed of development of technology, and especially electric cars, battery technology is improving a lot... higher capacity, smaller, lighter batteries. Also, solar panel technology is improving. How many years before we have a combination of battery and solar panel which means that we don't need gas at all, and can do everything of battery?

Gathering and storing enough energy into batteries to replace LPG is going to present some real challenges, more so if you want heating in the winter.

Your 10 kg cylinder of propane equates to about 136 kWh.

Our present 100 Ahr batteries when brand new store about 0.6kWh of usable energy. So we need about a 230 times improvement on that to match the 10 kgs of propane; maybe one day.

Whilst it will I am sure remain extensively in use for domestic home heating, I can't see them sending a tanker over to your home to top up your 10 kg refillable even if left till bone dry; for sure not if a Calor contractor 

No but I am told you can go to their depot and use their LPG pumps. I was made aware of this sometime ago but there are no depots near me. Checkout >Countrywide< Their prices are also cheaper than garage prices.

peedee

Such a shame they do not operate in or near Kent. There are a couple of main service stations on routes that I use but from what I read they would not allow refillable cylinders to be refilled.