LPG Honda

[cariad]

I'll be using the genny mainly for battery charging as we now live off grid. Although we will be fitting a washing machine in the near future.

I'd thought about LPG to avoid the dangers of having petrol in the boat.

I didn't think gas would be less economical than petrol. Anyone else found this to be the case?

The company that fitted the gas conversion kit to my Honda eui20 state in their instructions that 0.25 kg gas per HP/hour at full load.

this works out on a 13 kg bottle you should get 52 hours. 13 kg bottle around £25.00 seems much better value than running the engine.

When I did a check on a 13 kg bottle I got 48 hours not 52, it may not have been full, but it was near enough for me.

I don't know what the cost work out with petrol, perhaps someone else can inform us on that.

[Alastair]

On a related subject, has anyone tried sunflower or rape seed oil in a Lister? It's more expensive to buy than red, but if you're miles away from a pump, most supermarkets sell sunflower and rape seed oil in 5 litre containers. I know it works in older Land Rover engines.

 

 

Don't try this in a landy engine with a Lucas fuel pump. Veg oil and biodiesel are too viscous when cold and you are likely to wreck your injection pump.

[peterboat]

Hi I have been doing gas conversions on cars for over 13 years. I have found that it is for cars far cheaper than diesel it also is much cleaner all you have to do is look at the oil on a lpg powered car and a diesel car, diesels as soon as you start them the oil gets dirty whilst I have drained oil at 10 thousand miles that is still clear! Also I have stripped an engine on a high mileage lpg car and the internals are clean virtualy no bore wear after 300 thousand miles and the bottom end was still good. Also if the engines are running the garage our preference is for lpg as diesels burn your throat after only a couple of minutes! We regularly have to scrub the floors clean after reving up a clean "diesel" this never happens for lpg. OK I may be biased but I run a shelby Mustang on lpg and it goes like the wind and doesnt register any emisions on its MOT its also very cheap to run. Also in our trade magazines they are saying that diesels are really struggling to pass the next batch of euro standards and they may have to be fitted with replaceable filters on the exhaust to get them clean (how long before these are bypassed like DPFs I ask) and we have to ask ourselves when will we be forced to follow suit? Stick with your lpg gennies you know it makes sense quiet, clean and cheaper than a real diesel gennie.

 

Peter

[GoodGurl]

The company that fitted the gas conversion kit to my Honda eui20 state in their instructions that 0.25 kg gas per HP/hour at full load.

this works out on a 13 kg bottle you should get 52 hours. 13 kg bottle around £25.00 seems much better value than running the engine.

When I did a check on a 13 kg bottle I got 48 hours not 52, it may not have been full, but it was near enough for me.

I don't know what the cost work out with petrol, perhaps someone else can inform us on that.

we have the Honda EU26i and are thinking about LPG conversion, reading your figures it makes sense to convert to gas, although we have solar we have to run the genny in winter, the cost is £25 for 6 days at 4hrs per day, so i think gas is the way to go for us plus you can always get gas at a marina, garages are a little harder to come by.

[Nickhlx]

I had thought that a litre of LPG yields about 80% of the energy that a litre of petrol yields. However it is ? around 70p/litre at the pumps ( i.e. WITH propulsion tax included) compared to the £1-30 or so that a litre of UL95 costs at the pumps at the moment, so LPG must be significantly cheaper per kWh of energy than petrol, especially if you can get it propulsion tax free ( e.g. in Red Cylinders or bulk delivered).. And that's apart from the cleaner burn and all the benefits that brings

 

 

Nick

[Ex- Member]

we have the Honda EU26i and are thinking about LPG conversion, reading your figures it makes sense to convert to gas, although we have solar we have to run the genny in winter, the cost is £25 for 6 days at 4hrs per day, so i think gas is the way to go for us plus you can always get gas at a marina, garages are a little harder to come by.

 

WOW

 

Hi GG

 

You must have quite a power demand then, that seems a lot generator running.

 

I believe the conversion kits are pretty expensive, might be worth equation how much solar you could buy with a conversion cost.

[Captain Fizz]

Worth reading Peter Noble's thoughts on the subject.

He has found varying results with converting generators that employ auto variable throttles.

He found that real cost savings can be made if the larger gas cylinders are employed but that they were fairly small when used with a 13kg cylinder.

Petespower

[Ex- Member]

Worth reading Peter Noble's thoughts on the subject.

He has found varying results with converting generators that employ auto variable throttles.

He found that real cost savings can be made if the larger gas cylinders are employed but that they were fairly small when used with a 13kg cylinder.

Petespower

 

That would make sense. A 13kg bottle of gas costs around £25 I think 1kg of gas = 1.65 l of LPG. So there's 21.45 litres of LPG in a bottle, so that makes £1.16 PPL a saving of 14PPL With the kit costing ball park £200 you'll need to run the genny on gas for 1420 hours to break even. Even more if propane is 20% less efficient than petrol.

 

Of course there are the other cleaner burning benefits, they are pretty marginal though IMO

[peterboat]

 

That would make sense. A 13kg bottle of gas costs around £25 I think 1kg of gas = 1.65 l of LPG. So there's 21.45 litres of LPG in a bottle, so that makes £1.16 PPL a saving of 14PPL With the kit costing ball park £200 you'll need to run the genny on gas for 1420 hours to break even. Even more if propane is 20% less efficient than petrol.

 

Of course there are the other cleaner burning benefits, they are pretty marginal though IMO

I refill my bottles so its 62 p a litre for me and I thought a kilo of gas was 2 litres? could be wrong though

 

Peter

[Ex- Member]

I refill my bottles so its 62 p a litre for me and I thought a kilo of gas was 2 litres? could be wrong though

 

Peter

 

That is a cheap way of doing it Peter. Do you use a conversion tube thing that you refill the bottle from a petrol station. I got the gas litre figure of the internet.

 

So on my figures refilling a 13gk bottle would be 21.45 litres @ 62p is £13.30 per bottle. That's a big saving, half price basically. I'm tempted now LOL

 

ETA how much is it to fill a 13kg bottle?

 

ETA, found some figures nearer yours now There are variations depend on temperature, ball park as you say though Peter.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Julynian

[GoodGurl]

 

WOW

 

Hi GG

 

You must have quite a power demand then, that seems a lot generator running.

 

I believe the conversion kits are pretty expensive, might be worth equation how much solar you could buy with a conversion cost.

Yes we use alot of power but i like my creature comforts we have 6 x US2200 leisure batteries, the cost of a conversion kit for the genny is around £175, i can't get any more solar on the roof as it is we have 950watt but unless we have sunny days in winter they are useless. and it's not an option to cut down on my leccy usage .

[Ex- Member]

Yes we use alot of power but i like my creature comforts we have 6 x US2200 leisure batteries, the cost of a conversion kit for the genny is around £175, i can't get any more solar on the roof as it is we have 950watt but unless we have sunny days in winter they are useless. and it's not an option to cut down on my leccy usage .

 

 

Blimey GG you have 200w more solar than us too Same size battery bank as us though and same batteries. Well if you want it you have to pay the price I suppose. Gas is possibly a good move for you then.

 

BTW what kind of boat do you have. Also when you charge with the genny, are you using a mains charger. AND do you run the engine as well for charging and possibly hot water.

 

I only ask as we seem to have found a happy medium, and might be doing something that helps your power situation as well, as we're not exactly skimping on what we use but using much less generation than you seem to be.

 

Julian

[GoodGurl]

 

 

Blimey GG you have 200w more solar than us too Same size battery bank as us though and same batteries. Well if you want it you have to pay the price I suppose. Gas is possibly a good move for you then.

 

BTW what kind of boat do you have. Also when you charge with the genny, are you using a mains charger. AND do you run the engine as well for charging and possibly hot water.

 

I only ask as we seem to have found a happy medium, and might be doing something that helps your power situation as well, as we're not exactly skimping on what we use but using much less generation than you seem to be.

 

Julian

we have a 65 foot NB, yes we have a victron multiplus invertor 3000, we FULLY charge the batteries daily ( 14.8v ), no we don't run the engine unless moving, hot water comes from the fire in winter and the solar in summer (we use the immersion heater)

[Ex- Member]

we have a 65 foot NB, yes we have a victron multiplus invertor 3000, we FULLY charge the batteries daily ( 14.8v ), no we don't run the engine unless moving, hot water comes from the fire in winter and the solar in summer (we use the immersion heater)

 

Cool! The Victron will do the business for sure. We don't fully charge every day either so that possibly reduces our genny running times. We've just got a EU10I is runs for 6.5 hours on 2.5l of petrol whilst supplying 240v to the boat and battery charging.

 

We're using around around 6L per week £8.00 p week Max. but we do run the engine for an hour in the morning which bulk charges and gives us hot water for the day.

 

Let us know how the conversion goes if you do it.

[GoodGurl]

 

Cool! The Victron will do the business for sure. We don't fully charge every day either so that possibly reduces our genny running times. We've just got a EU10I is runs for 6.5 hours on 2.5l of petrol whilst supplying 240v to the boat and battery charging.

 

We're using around around 6L per week £8.00 p week Max. but we do run the engine for an hour in the morning which bulk charges and gives us hot water for the day.

 

Let us know how the conversion goes if you do it.

deffo will do the conversion, will post here when i have some facts,