Small propane (orange) gas cylinders - 3.9kg

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, IanD said:

And if their boat is next to yours when it goes kaboom...?

 

Just remember that ALL of the boats moored 'next to me' (or even within '50 miles' of me) have not had any gas inspections, could well be unsafe gas installations & everyone could be DIY filled.

 

How many gas explosions have been recorded on the 300,000+ leisure coastal boats ?

 

You worry about your boat compromises and how the trip hazards on the gunwales could lead to you drowning and I'll worry about my decisions.

 

'You cannot fix stupid' - so, as the saying goes 'worry about what you can fix'.

[Paul C]

Refilling a 3.9 from a 49kg cylinder isn't the answer. There's plenty of people who don't have, and have nowhere to store, the 49. After all, if they can only fit a 3.9...........

 

And they can't do it at home and lug bottles; or fill it at a garage.

 

There isn't really a neat answer, I guess boat mods and/or moving to some other cylinder supplier, which might be a refillable such as Safefill.

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Paul C said:

Refilling a 3.9 from a 49kg cylinder isn't the answer. There's plenty of people who don't have, and have nowhere to store, the 49. After all, if they can only fit a 3.9...........

 

And they can't do it at home and lug bottles; or fill it at a garage.

 

Don't forget that you are ignoring the vast majority (maybe 75%-80%) of boaters who do have a 'home' and could easily keep a 9kg, or 13kg or even a 47kg cylinder at home and fill up their 'baby' 3.9kg before they go down to the boat for the weekend, or the 2 week holiday or whatever.

 

Agree that liveaboards will not be able to keep 47kg cylinders on the boat, but I wonder how many liveaboard boats have been designed to have tiny cylinders ?

 

It's only a small sample but I have had 12 NBs and everyone has a locker that can acommodate 13kg cylinders - in fact the only sea going boat I have had (a French built one) had small gas lockers for the Camping Gaz size cylinders, although the 4kg Butanes do fit. GAZ is available worldwide so makes sense to have it on a 'blue water boat.

[Paul C]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Don't forget that you are ignoring the vast majority (maybe 75%-80%) of boaters who do have a 'home' and could easily keep a 9kg, or 13kg or even a 47kg cylinder at home and fill up their 'baby' 3.9kg before they go down to the boat for the weekend, or the 2 week holiday or whatever.

 

I'm not forgetting or ignoring anything. I said "plenty of people". I didn't say "everyone". I am only considering those who are affected by this, of course, why would I include others? Taking it a step further, I could have said gasless boats aren't affected; or people who don't have a boat, etc etc. We are discussing, obviously, those who ARE affected.

 

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Agree that liveaboards will not be able to keep 47kg cylinders on the boat, but I wonder how many liveaboard boats have been designed to have tiny cylinders ?

 

Plenty of boats weren't designed to be a liveaboard but are now used by a liveaboard.

 

 

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

It's only a small sample but I have had 12 NBs and everyone has a locker that can acommodate 13kg cylinders - in fact the only sea going boat I have had (a French built one) had small gas lockers for the Camping Gaz size cylinders, although the 4kg Butanes do fit. GAZ is available worldwide so makes sense to have it on a 'blue water boat.

 

Blue water boats are completely irrelevant on a forum named canalworld.

[Momac]

23 hours ago, jonathanA said:

I suspect calor will find a lot of 3.9kg bottles do not get returned for exactly this reason.

Why  would they want them returning ?

Why would anyone want to return them?

9 hours ago, MtB said:

 

 

I think boaters whose boats really are too low at the bow to modify the gas locker to accept 13kg propane bottles will have to switch to using the Campingaz R907 cylinder, holding 2.75kg of <something>. Butane presumably.

 

https://www.campingaz.co.uk/gas/refillable-gas-bottles/r907-empty-cylinder/SAP_3000005493.html

 

 

 

Yes its Butane .

Best part of £40 per refill

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Paul C said:

Blue water boats are completely irrelevant on a forum named canalworld.

 

Which is why I separated out the fact that all 12 of the NBs I have had have had lockers able to accomodate 2x 13kg cylinders.

 

Why would anyone buy a boat for liveboard if it did not have suitable equipment, or, was capable of being converted?

It's like buying a leisure boat that only has space for a single (or at best two) domestic batteries, when  you know as a liveaboard you need (probably) 4 or 5 batteries, 

[Momac]

8 hours ago, MtB said:

 

 

£54.99 for a refill.

 

This is where the danger lies. I will be refilling my own, as will everyone else. 

 

 

 

£36 each  for the two I bought  a few weeks ago but usually around £40. Has the price increased recently?

8 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Do you still have your written rental agreement?If so, yes I think they will! 

 

 

Dont think so . It will have time expired .

[Momac]

6 hours ago, IanD said:

 

And there's absolutely nothing stopping naive DIY refillers from filling to 100%. Given the lack of knowledge regularly seen on this forum by newbies (on pretty much all subjects), do you really think this is a good idea?

 

If somebody blew up their boat and killed themselves would you just say "Well that was stupid, it's their fault, I wouldn't have done that"? Because that's what your posts are coming over as saying... 😞

 

There are very good reasons why unskilled people are not permitted to do things which can be extremely dangerous to themselves and especially others, and DIY refilling of gas cylinders looks like one of them to me.

I agree its unsafe 

But if the suppliers are ceasing to supply or charging rip off  refill costs then DIY transfer of gas becomes very tempting. 

[ditchcrawler]

52 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

And if their boat is next to yours when it goes kaboom...?

 

Actually that wouldn't bother me so much, it would be poetic justice for you having encouraged DIY bottle refilling -- after all, Darwin works for everyone, doesn't it?

 

But if they were moored next to a boat of nuns looking after several orphaned children, I'd be rather sad... 😞

 

52 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

And if their boat is next to yours when it goes kaboom...?

 

Actually that wouldn't bother me so much, it would be poetic justice for you having encouraged DIY bottle refilling -- after all, Darwin works for everyone, doesn't it?

 

But if they were moored next to a boat of nuns looking after several orphaned children, I'd be rather sad... 😞

But if you do it right its safe, should we ban all DIY.

[ditchcrawler]

21 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Why would anyone buy a boat for liveboard if it did not have suitable equipment, or, was capable of being converted?

It's like buying a leisure boat that only has space for a single (or at best two) domestic batteries, when  you know as a liveaboard you need (probably) 4 or 5 batteries, 

Just read some of the threads on this forum

[Paul C]

Returning to the OP, there isn't anything official I can find regarding discontinuing 3.9kg cylinders, but Calor has a service statement saying they have gas cylinder availability issues in general:

 

We are prioritising cylinders for home heating and key business infrastructure at this challenging time. Please read our full statement

 

So it could be the pragmatic outcome is they're halting 3.9kg cylinders TEMPORARILY first, because these are mostly (but not all...) leisure use. Gas cylinders canalside in general might be next, in a few months time. Of course, liveaboards will be lumped in with the false perception that canal = leisure use.

[Captain Pegg]

30 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

I'm not forgetting or ignoring anything. I said "plenty of people". I didn't say "everyone". I am only considering those who are affected by this, of course, why would I include others? Taking it a step further, I could have said gasless boats aren't affected; or people who don't have a boat, etc etc. We are discussing, obviously, those who ARE affected.

 

 

Plenty of boats weren't designed to be a liveaboard but are now used by a liveaboard.

 

 

 

Blue water boats are completely irrelevant on a forum named canalworld.

Agreed. I certainly don’t want to be handling and storing larger cylinders at home or DIY filling.

 

It seems for starters the withdrawal of the Calor 3.9kg cylinders isn’t imminent although some say availability is already poor. I haven’t had any problems yet.

 

Beyond that it doesn’t seem beyond possibility to switch over to FloGas. It’s cheaper but the logistics will be harder. Part of the benefit of keeping the same size bottles is that I can still keep two in the locker and that means I’ll have plenty of time to source a replacement when one runs out.

[jonathanA]

38 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Why  would they want them returning ?

Why would anyone want to return them?

Yes its Butane .

Best part of £40 per refill

Err because they belong to calor...

And...

To get any refund on their rental agreement, although that's pretty unlikely as most people won't have the rental agreement they signed yearsvago...

 

Guess you don't really know much about how calor operate.

[Momac]

4 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

Err because they belong to calor...

And...

To get any refund on their rental agreement, although that's pretty unlikely as most people won't have the rental agreement they signed yearsvago...

 

Guess you don't really know much about how calor operate.

Yes I do know how they operate  , thank you .

 

They charge a large deposit that they expect never to pay back . Even if you have the original agreement it will probably have time expired . But as you say who will have retained that agreement?

 

It's easier/cheaper  to buy an empty on ebay  and take that for  exchange for a refill .

 

 

 

[Paul C]

53 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Why  would they want them returning ?

Why would anyone want to return them?

 

1) Possibly to get the deposit back

2) Because officially, according to the bottle rental agreement, you cannot transfer them, so for example if someone sells a narrowboat they should return the cylinders to Calor and the next owner take their own agreement out. I know pragmatically nobody does this though.

3) Because they need to dispose of it for some other reason, and they do the responsible thing, since household recycling etc don't take them in, neither will scrap metal merchants, and flytipping it isn't the right thing to do either.....

[ditchcrawler]

11 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

 

To get any refund on their rental agreement, although that's pretty unlikely as most people won't have the rental agreement they signed yearsvago...

 

Long long time since I bought one but isn't the payback on a sliding scale against the age of the contract?

[Jerra]

16 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

Err because they belong to calor...

And...

To get any refund on their rental agreement, although that's pretty unlikely as most people won't have the rental agreement they signed yearsvago...

 

Guess you don't really know much about how calor operate.

Even if you have the paper work they reduce the amount they return to you depending on how long since you started with the cylinder.

[Momac]

1 minute ago, Paul C said:

 

1) Possibly to get the deposit back

2) Because officially, according to the bottle rental agreement, you cannot transfer them, so for example if someone sells a narrowboat they should return the cylinders to Calor and the next owner take their own agreement out. I know pragmatically nobody does this though.

3) Because they need to dispose of it for some other reason, and they do the responsible thing, since household recycling etc don't take them in, neither will scrap metal merchants, and flytipping it isn't the right thing to do either.....

1 Possible but unlikely in most cases

2 Who cares about that (as you say)

3 Fair enough for disposal but I bet most people will know someone who is happy to have a spare empty. 

[Jerra]

3 minutes ago, MartynG said:

1 Possible but unlikely in most cases

2 Who cares about that (as you say)

3 Fair enough for disposal but I bet most people will know someone who is happy to have a spare empty. 

Our local recycling centre takes all types of gas cylinder and presumably they are returned to the owners.  They have a cage like those used to store the cylinders for sale.

[MtB]

6 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Our local recycling centre takes all types of gas cylinder and presumably they are returned to the owners.  They have a cage like those used to store the cylinders for sale.

 

 

That's because to store gas cylinders commercially you have to have one. The regulations draw no distinction between empty and full gas bottles.

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Long long time since I bought one but isn't the payback on a sliding scale against the age of the contract?

 

Yes.

 

I think it actually goes down to zero or virtually zero.

 

I have still got mine signed in 2015 but its not to hand so cant check.

[ditchcrawler]

Maybe people upcycle them

[Guest]

Just now, ditchcrawler said:

Maybe people upcycle them

 

Yup. And flog them on eBay. Thats where got one of ours from.

[Jerra]

16 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

That's because to store gas cylinders commercially you have to have one. The regulations draw no distinction between empty and full gas bottles.

I wasn't querying why they had a cage I mentioned it to show they were a) happy to take cylinders and b) fully geared up to store and dispose of them.

[Tim Lewis]

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Edited July 19, 2022 by Tim Lewis