Safefill refillable gas bottles…

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With the demise of the Calor lite bottle, we decided to upgrade to a Safefill solution. The big benefit for us will be that we can always leave with a full tank of gas, whereas now, exchanging bottles inevitably results in an amount of waste.

The bottle was bought from the accessory shop of the Caravan Company on the A4 between Reading and Newbury, for a price of around £160.

We went for the 10kg bottle which holds around 20l of LPG but that is temperature and mix dependent. In the UK LPG is typically 100% Propane but on mainland Europe this can change to include as much as 30 to 40 percent butane.

Butane does hold more energy than propane but also gels at low temperature making it less useful in the UK.

The 10kg bottle fits nicely in the front locker of our Sterling Eccles Ruby SE.

Front Locker…

For emergency use and for compatibility in Europe we also have a Camping Gaz bottle 907 which holds 2.75kg of a butane / propane mix and is attached to a brass T piece along with the Safefill.

The first addition of gas to the Safefill bottle recommends no more than 15 litres as the bottle is already full of air and there is no mechanism to expunge it.

The fill was carried out at a station in Finchampstead which is more of a specialist supplier than a regular petrol station. The chap was helpful and showed me how to attach the gun and fill the bottle.

Detaching the trigger results in a cloud of gas and vaporizing liquid and being quite noisy can be a little off putting. It is though quite normal and it’s just the LPG in the connectors vaporizing. I would recommend wearing some leather gardening gloves as the mechanisms and connectors can become very cold.

The sequence is:

– Attach the gun, rotating the gun cylinder 90 degrees to lock onto the studs

– Lock the trigger on

– Open Safefill valve

– Press Autogas fill button until desired amount of gas is loaded. The Safefill bottle will stop the fueling at 80% in any case

– Close the Safefill valve

– Release the trigger, watch the cloud of gas and then pay!

In this case the 15l cost £9, at exactly 60p per litre. That works out at £12 for a full 10kg bottle. Compares nicely with Calor lite at around £25 for a 6kg bottle and Camping Gaz at about £20 for 2.75kg.