Calor Gas 13 Kg. Propane Cylinder

[NB Alnwick]

I understand that these items have become scarce but we have acquired a spare one too many.

I know that they go for a premium on eBay and similar auction sites but if any forum member is in desperate need and is willing to collect it from our boat, currently moored at Cropredy Marina, we would happily exchange it for something more useful (like a beer or red wine)!

Please pm me if interested.

Edited August 19, 2023 by NB Alnwick
Spelling!

[Steilsteven]

You could sell it back to Calor, I think they pay £7 for them.

 

Keith

[Lily Rose]

25 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

You could sell it back to Calor, I think they pay £7 for them.

 

Keith

 

If I ever choose to sell my 3rd one (at home in the garden and little-used) that's the last place it would go. £7 is a cheek given how much they charge when you buy - assuming you could find somewhere to sell you one without a swap. I'd rather give it away to a deserving cause.

[Tracy D'arth]

You never own a Calor cylinder, its not yours to sell.

[Lily Rose]

In theory. In practice they do get sold. In the unlikely event Calor said they wanted it back then they'd be out of luck as it had been nicked a while back.

[magnetman]

Worth asking the coal boat. One of the London coal boats was paying £15 for calor cylinders. 

 

They might give you a brown envelope for the contraband and ask you to tell nobody. 

 

They know where you live !

[MtB]

12 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

You never own a Calor cylinder, its not yours to sell.

 

For this reason I would never buy one.

 

I might however, make an 'ex gratia' donation to the coffers of someone who didn't want the one they had, but also didn't own.

 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by MtB
Clarify a point.

[NB Alnwick]

8 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

You never own a Calor cylinder, its not yours to sell.

Well there were two with the boat when we purchased it in 2005 - one could therefore argue that we did buy them as part of the package.

We also hired two more from Calor at the then exhorbitant price of £57.95 each. That said, I have no idea how they managed to multiply over the last 18 years but aftyer many many exchanges, we now have five and only have room for four!

 

[magnetman]

Be careful dealing with the cartels as they have a reputation for severity. 

 

 

[blackrose]

I don't think cartel is putting it too strongly. Does Calor own the IP for that particular size of bottle or more importantly I suppose the valve threads for the pigtails?

 

From speaking to a couple of chandlers they say that Calor are a nightmare to deal with and won't let them buy bottled gas from anyone else. If it's not a cartel then it's certainly a monopoly - how do they get around the anti-competition laws?

Edited August 20, 2023 by blackrose

[Peanut]

1 minute ago, blackrose said:

 - how do they get around the anti-competition laws?

Their French.

[blackrose]

11 minutes ago, Peanut said:

Their French.

 

I'm pretty sure the EU anti-competition laws are EU wide 

Edited August 20, 2023 by blackrose

[Tracy D'arth]

12 minutes ago, Peanut said:

Their French.

They are or they're French? They don't own a French.

[Peanut]

Quite correct Sir.

Too much truanting.

 

The French don't seem to follow all the rules all the time.

 

[magnetman]

I thought Calor was Dutch. 

Yes they are Dutch.

 

Owners of Calor:

 

...

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by magnetman

[Ronaldo47]

Calor's business model is perfectly legal.  Sodastream adopted it a couple of decades ago.

 

Originally, when you bought a Sodastream machine, you also bought the gas cylinder that came with it.  Sodastream would accept your cylinder in part exchange when you bought a new one, but you always owned any gas cylinders you bought, outright, and so could do what you liked with them.

 

A third party company then started supplying Sodastream-compatible cylinders. They would also accept Sodastream cylinders in part exchange, and would obliterate the Sodastream markings, refill them and sell them bearing their own labels.

 

Sodastream took them to court, but lost because once their cylinders had been sold, they no longer had any property rights in them. So they changed their business model to the Calor gas type, meaning that now you only buy the gas in a Sodastream cylinder, the cylinder itself remains the property of Sodastream, and third party companies can no longer refill and re-lable Sodastream cylinders as their own products, they must supply their own cylinders.

 

We still have our milk delivered in glass bottles, and the bottles have markings saying that they are the property of the dairy.  

Edited August 20, 2023 by Ronaldo47
typos

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Ronaldo47 said:

 

We still have our milk delivered in glass bottles, and the bottles have markings saying that they are the property of the dairy.  

 

Amazing! Are they delivered in a Tesla, too?

 

 

 

[Ronaldo47]

I am pretty sure it's a diesel van. Very quiet though, usually comes around midnight, delivery on alternate days only: Mon, Wed, & Fri. The depot is too far away to allow the use of the old type of milk float, especially with the many steep roads we have locally. 

 

Actually, having just checked, our present empties are unmarked.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Ronaldo47

[Jerra]

2 hours ago, blackrose said:

I don't think cartel is putting it too strongly. Does Calor own the IP for that particular size of bottle or more importantly I suppose the valve threads for the pigtails?

 

From speaking to a couple of chandlers they say that Calor are a nightmare to deal with and won't let them buy bottled gas from anyone else. If it's not a cartel then it's certainly a monopoly - how do they get around the anti-competition laws?

I had a conversation at an Anglo-Welsh yard when looking for a particular size cylinder.  fortunately, they had one but complained long and loud about the treatment they received fro m Calor despite the amount of gas the company bought.

2 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

We still have our milk delivered in glass bottles, and the bottles have markings saying that they are the property of the dairy.  

So do we but the markings say they are the property of dairies spread over a hundred miles radius and not the dairy that delivers.

[Arthur Marshall]

30 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

I am pretty sure it's a diesel van. Very quiet though, usually comes around midnight, delivery on alternate days only: Mon, Wed, & Fri. The depot is too far away to allow the use of the old type of milk float, especially with the many steep roads we have locally. 

 

Actually, having just checked, our present empties are unmarked.

Ours comes in an electric van, 3 days a week. Get bread off him, too. Bottles from random dairies. I assume they share...

[NB Alnwick]

We used to get our pop delivered by Corona in re-sealable bottles but that was in the good old days when our railways were still British . . .

[Ronaldo47]

5 hours ago, blackrose said:

........    Does Calor own the IP for that particular size of bottle or more importantly I suppose the valve threads for the pigtails?

 

My understanding is that UK Copyright and Design law has "must fit" and "must match" provisions that exclude from protection, features (like screw thread configurations) of a design that are provided for connecting something to something else.  But then I retired a decade ago and the law never stands still, normally in the direction of increasing the protection given to large businesses, at least insofar as increasing the duration of exclusivity  is concerned.

 

The law is different in other countries: In the USA it is possible to get exclusive rights for special screw thread coupling configurations, something that I believe is used by companies in the oil drilling industry to ensure that third parties cannot make stuff that can be connected to their own proprietary  pipework.

Edited August 20, 2023 by Ronaldo47
typos

[Ianws]

2 hours ago, NB Alnwick said:

We used to get our pop delivered by Corona in re-sealable bottles but that was in the good old days when our railways were still British . . .

I remember during the pandemic that the strapline for their bubble characters wouldn't have been great if they were still in business. "I've passed my Corona fizzical".

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Ronaldo47 said:

My understanding is that UK Copyright and Design law has "must fit" and "must match" provisions that exclude from protection, features (like screw thread configurations) of a design that are provided for connecting something to something else.  But then I retired a decade ago and the law never stands still, normally in the direction of increasing the protection given to large businesses, at least insofar as increasing the duration of exclusivity  is concerned.

 

The POL connectors on propane are industry standard. All the other connections I believe are proprietary and Calor have the rights to them. This still does not make them a "cartel". In fact I don't think BR understands what the term means from the way he uses it. I think he means monopoly, which Calor still are not. Anyone (including BR) is free to design and manufacture their own range of LPG gas bottles and set up a distribution network to compete with Calor. Several already have but so far, none has achieved the market penetration Calor enjoy as a fruit of their long term investments over many decades. 

 

 

[magnetman]

To be fair I think that Calor could be described as part of a cartel. Obviously they are not in themselves a cartel but do you ever see reasonably priced bottled gas at boatyards? 

 

The 13kg bottles for example are fairly heavy which makes it less easy to cycle off into the distance and find it cheaper. 

 

There is also a long and illustrious and traceable history of Calor buying up a LOT of smaller providers of bottled gas. 

 

I personally think that provision of bottled gas in sensible sizes could be described as a cartel.  There are several suppliers. Not many and they are in cahoots around pricing. 

 

List of gas supplier brands owned by Calor (from their website)

 

Abbott Gas	Anglesey Gas	Astra Gas	Autogas
BCS Cheaper Gas	Bell Gas	Best Gas	Blackburn Gas
Border Gas	Brita Gas Ltd	Budget Gas Ltd	Calor Gas
Castle Gas	Compact Gas	Corral Gas	Cosy Gas
CPS Fuels & CPS Gas	Darnley – Wakefield	D G Supplies	Discount Gas
Easy Gas	Elf	ELF Anglia	ELF Flexigas
ELF Propower	Eurogas	Firepalm	Flexigas
GL Gas	Glogas	Go-Gas Cylinders	Hardy & Collins
Heatlink	Heron Gas	Hingley Gas	Homeheat
Jackson Gas	K Gas	KG Smith	Kim Gas
King Gas	Knight Gas	Knottingley Gas	LBG London – Bottled Gas
L&B Gas	London Gas	LPG Direct	MG Gas Supplies
Manchester Gas	Mariner Gas	MB Gas	Merrell Gas
Mitchell Gas	Northern Gas	Norvic Gas	PD Fuels
Pennine Gas	PML	Primagas	Propower
Quadgas	Quadstoke	R&R Gas	Roberts Fuels Ltd
Rochdale Gas	Rogas	Scottish Rural Gas	Sheppards Industrial Services (SIS)
Solo Gas	SR Jackson	Stubbings Gas	Swift Gas Ltd
Tank Gas	The Gas Man	The Gasman	Traford Gas
Trident Gas	Try Gas	UKPP	Vitagas
West Wales Gas	WWG

 

 

So yeah. 

 

 

Cheaper Gas and Budget Gas Ltd stick in the craw a little. 

I don't know what they did there but somehow they seem to have knocked all of those suppliers out.