Keith Gooden
Welcome along to the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
He’s the expert and I’m filling in this chair to the left of him!
Matt Sims
You raise the average age!
Keith Gooden
Yes, by about two years! Okay, then – a guide to gas is what we’re talking about today. So for anything you want to know about the gas in your motorhome or your caravan or your van, this is the podcast for you. No fart jokes!
Matt Sims
You had to get that in early, didn’t you? You’re leaking them out…
Deals from That Leisure Shop
Keith Gooden
But first of all, let’s talk about www.thatleisureshop.com, which sponsors the podcast every week – a fabulous company with fabulous stock and that’s why you – fabulously – should buy buying something from them! This week, what should people be buying?
Matt Sims
So this week, there are some fantastic deals on the website and in the store itself. Windbreaks! Lots of offers on windbreaks. If you’re after a grey one, a blue one or even an orange one- our corporate colour – we’ve got loads of them and they’re on discount as well. It’s a great little accessory that’s very useful to throw in the back of the motorhome or in the campervan or in the caravan, even!
We’ve even got windbreaks with a Kadar strip. So on a caravan you have an awning rail around the side of it. You can attach the windbreak to your caravan and then pull it away from the caravan and peg it down and there you are – instant wall. Brilliant!
Keith Gooden
Never underestimate the power of the breeze. Get yourself a windbreak. One of the things I wanted to mention, actually, was that delivery from www.thatleisureshop.com is actually within two or three days – and sometimes it can be next day, can’t it?
Matt Sims
It usually is next day. It depends what time you place the order. So we use DHL as our courier, and they’ve been fantastic, generally. In fact, most of the time, they’ve been great. And it’s normally next day and people are often surprised.
They say, “Gosh, I got only ordered that yesterday morning and it’s here!” So yes, two to three days is our promise. Most of the time it’s next day, if you get the order in early in the day. The team will then get busy picking and packing. And often there’s a little mystery gift inside as well.
Keith Gooden
Oh, a mystery gift!
Matt Sims
Yeah – no promises!
Keith Gooden
Free things – we love that. Okay, then, let’s delve into the news, shall we, for today – the Newbury show.
Matt Sims
Yes, that’s coming up next week. If you’re going to the Southern Motorhome and Caravan Show, as it’s called, at the Newbury showground, we’ll be there with the shop, Andy, Mandy, Darren and Jude – the cost of our children’s TV show. They will be there. I’m there as well. So yes, come along.
We’ve got some fantastic tables and chairs, a huge range of Crespo product and Bo-Camp too – they are beautiful. So come along and have a look. And we’ve got kayaks and inflatable paddle boards from Seago as well. So if you’ve ever fancied sitting in a kayak, an inflatable one, come and check them out. You can do just that.
Keith Gooden
And it’s a good one for that area because they’ve got all the old gravel pits, haven’t they?
Matt Sims
I’m not saying you go off and have a go. Just come and sit in one – or stand on one!
Keith Gooden
Some of the customers might actually be living near to somewhere that you could use them.
Matt Sims
Yeah, that’s very true. That’s very true. They are a brilliant accessory, though. They fold down fairly small. They’re easy to stash away in the garage of your motorhome, and they’re great fun in the sea or on freshwater. So yeah, come and have a look.
We won Best Leisure Vehicle Podcast of the Year
Keith Gooden
We’ve won an award – another one, Matt!
Matt Sims
I know – double award-winning! We have won best leisure vehicle podcast of the year for the UK. That’s pretty good. Well done!
Keith Gooden
Any competition?
Matt Sims
No.
Keith Gooden
We’re the first, we’re the best and we’re the brightest!
Matt Sims
SME News awarded it to us, so yeah, we’re very chuffed. We’ve waiting on the trophy. I’ll bring that in later. You can give it a polish.
Keith Gooden
Thank you very much for awarding us that, and thank you for everybody who listens – it’s fabulous. Over 70,000 downloads last year, and believe me, for podcasts, that’s pretty damn good.
Matt Sims
We’re nearly 100,000 now!
Keith Gooden
Are we?! That’s fantastic. Okay, then – it’s the Motorhome Matt podcasts brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com.
Why do motorhomes typically use propane gas?
Keith Gooden
Let’s get into the main bit of the podcast for this week – it is our guide to gas.
Matt Sims
There it is. Why do we have the gas we have?
Keith Gooden
Why do we have the gas we have?
Matt Sims
Yeah, so we sell Calor gas. We’re a Calor gas stockist in the shop.
Keith Gooden
Do you know that calor in Spanish means hot?
Matt Sims
I do. You said that before.
Keith Gooden
I know, I have said before. Sorry to be boring, but I think it needs to be repeated. Caliente means hot food, spicy. Calor means hot.
Matt Sims
There we are – that’s the name. That’s where it came from.
Keith Gooden
Calor gas.
Matt Sims
Yeah, thank you.
Keith Gooden
You’re welcome.
Calor discontinues smaller gas cylinders
Matt Sims
So we sell Calor gas. We sell loads of it, particularly to people with a motorhome, campervan or caravan. And we get lots of questions about it, as well. Of course, Calor have been in the news, haven’t they, very recently having scrapped the small bottles. So Calor back on the first of February decided, and it was a very short term announcement – in fact, we leaked it on TikTok.
Keith Gooden
You leaked gas?
Matt Sims
I did leak gas! We leaked the news. It wasn’t a big secret. A press release had gone out to the trade…
Keith Gooden
But it was big enough.
Matt Sims
It was big enough, and we had 105,000 views in a few hours!
Keith Gooden
On TikTok!
Matt Sims
Yes, we were famous on TikTok for a moment. My kids were very impressed. So from the first of February 2023, there was a bottle called the Cube, which isn’t very prolific in our industry – the 3.9 propane and the 4.5 butane were both discontinued and the Calor 6 Light, which has been that prolific in the motorhome and caravan world, and the 12-kilo butane were all discontinued, never to be seen again.
So we actually sold our last 3.9 and 4.5s the other week. And I wanted to take a picture of the customer buying them, because I said, “We will never sell one of these again. You’re our last customer to buy one of these because we are now unable to get any more.” So once they’re gone from the supply chain, that’s it. So we will not be supplying any more.
Why do gas bottle sizes matter for leisure vehicles?
Keith Gooden
Why does it matter about these sizes?
Matt Sims
Well, if you’ve got a Romahome, that’s a very small campervan, often built on a little Citroen van, or you’re even on a boat with a very small gas cupboard or a Volkswagen campervan, a VW, then you can only get these small bottles in the gas cupboard. So what are you going to do now? I mean, Calor will exchange your 3.9kg for 6kg. That’s all well and good, but if it doesn’t fit, it’s no use at all, is it?
So there’s a big issue, and Calor’s approach to it is, “Well, then change to Campingaz,” which is a French version of gas, which of course requires a different regulator. It’s also more expensive.
So there are all these considerations that people who are using the smaller bottles are having to face, and it raised lots of questions. Hang on a minute – I don’t like the fact this has been this control has been taken away from me by Calor. Why are we faced with this, and why do Calor control the market so much?
It was interesting that the CalorLite bottle came about in the 1990s. It was some years ago that Calor announced that they were discontinuing it. It’s taken them years to actually do it, but it was released in response to a BP Gaslight bottle. And Calor panicked because BP was entering the motorhome and caravan market, particularly at that point more so the caravan market because motorhomes were still relatively new.
So Calor launched this bottle. It turned out that the BP bottle was too big and didn’t fit into most motorhome gas lockers, so it wasn’t really an issue for Calor. But our market loved it. It had pictures of a motorhome and a caravan on it. It had a light top. It was a light bottle, and it was perfect. Payload is a big topic – it kept the weight down.
Keith Gooden
But what about our listeners? Are they now confused about what they can buy and can’t buy, can fit in their motorhome or their caravan or can’t? I mean, what does it mean for the end consumer? Is there a simple answer?
Matt Sims
Yeah, there is a simple answer. If you’re reliant on those smaller Calor bottles, you need to consider now an alternative. And that alternative is Campingaz in the first instance because that’s widely available, particularly on the continent and even in North Africa. Campingaz is everywhere. Calor, of course, is a UK-specific product, and you can’t exchange a Calor bottle for anything similar on the continent and in fact, anywhere.
It is only in the UK you’ll find the Calor gas bottle. So if you’re reliant on a small bottle, you’re going to have to consider going to Campingaz, changing your regulator that connects to the bottle, because that will be different, or you can consider another supplier like Flogas or maybe a very small refillable bottle, where you take that bottle to a gas dispenser and have it refilled there.
Gas bottle regulators
Keith Gooden
Why are the regulators different? Is it just to lock you into one supplier, or is there something different about the gas?
Matt Sims
There are several types of regulators, depending on the bottle. So there is propane and butane – both are LPG, liquid petroleum gas. I used to believe that butane burned hotter and longer than propane, but it doesn’t. They burn exactly the same. In a laboratory, there might be a microscopic amount of difference, but they’re both LPG. The difference is the temperature at which they will operate.
Propane will operate at a much lower temperature than butane. So in the cold, a propane bottle will operate down to -45 degrees Centigrade. It doesn’t really get that cold in the UK, does it? Whereas butane will only function down to – 0.5 degrees. So in the UK, butane will freeze. It just won’t function and it won’t burn, and you lose all the pressure.
And that’s why propane is so prolific in motorhomes and caravans. Really, that’s the only reason that I can find. They are otherwise the same, but they carry a different connector, so a different connector to the bottle, and thus a different regulator.
Keith Gooden
Yes, so you’ve just got to change the regulator on the end of your pipe, which is fairly easy to do. And it’s worth keeping in mind as well that these are liquid gases, so they’re liquid in that bottle, aren’t they?
Matt Sims
Correct.
Keith Gooden
It’s not until you let the gas escape and it goes into your burner that it becomes a gas. Gas under pressure becomes a liquid.
Matt Sims
That’s right. And it’s a very high pressure, about 150 millibars, in the bottle. But it’s reduced down to 30 millibars via your regulator into the right pressure for the appliances in the vehicle. And that’s really key. That’s a very important point. Campingaz, though, is a mix of propane and butane.
And the reason they’ve mixed propane in with the butane is to lower the temperature it will operate at to make it viable to use in colder weather. If it was pure butane, it would freeze very easily. And Campingaz – now they are all refilled in France. Until I think 2019, the Campingaz bottles were being refilled by Calor in the UK. There’s a huge gas plant in Neath in South Wales, and that was being used to refill the Campingaz bottles.
A commercial decision was taken to not do that there. And they’re all being done in France, which is why there was a massive shortage post-COVID because there were no gas bottles from France being shipped. There were all these challenges with shipping, and there was no Campingaz in the UK for months and months and months.
And that’s why – it’s because they were coming from France full. The French authorities and Campingaz themselves stopped shipping it to the UK. They were keeping it in their own country. And then last year, they relinquished that and started selling them to the UK. So now we have a steady flow of Campingaz bottles again.
Keith Gooden
And has the price come down?
Matt Sims
No, it is more expensive. And of course, it’s only going to get more expensive as the demand goes up.
Why is Patio Gas more expensive?
Matt Sims
Then of, course, there’s Patio Gas. Have you heard of Patio Gas?
Keith Gooden
I have indeed heard of Patio Gas.
Matt Sims
Yeah, it’s a green bottle. And Patio Gas is just propane. It is exactly the same as a six-kilo red propane bottle in a different bottle.
Keith Gooden
So they’re just marketing it for your barbecue or for your heater or whatever.
Matt Sims
It’s called a leisure product, so it’s more expensive. I started unpacking this with Calor. Patio Gas bottles are green bottles with red handles, nice big handles. I have to say, they’re very easy to lift and to manoeuvre perhaps under your barbecue or next to your barbecue.
The gas inside is exactly the same as in a six-kilo gas bottle at a premium price.
Calor gas shortages and CRAs
Matt Sims
So there’s been a huge issue around people not having an empty bottle to exchange. And in the old days, pre-COVID, if I can call them the old days, you could go into a shop like That Leisure Shop or any Calor agent and pay them £39.99, and that would be a bottle deposit.
You’d get a little piece of paper that confirmed you paid it, and you’d be given a full bottle of gas. When you’d used that, you’d then take that empty back and they’d exchange it for a full one. You kept that piece of paper.
Keith Gooden
So you paid for the bottle once.
Matt Sims
Exactly. It’s a bottle deposit. They call it a Calor refill agreement, a CRA. Calor has stopped doing that on all their bottles. You could not buy a bottle of gas if you didn’t have an empty. And so the black market went mad – people were selling them initially at £10 a bottle or £5 a bottle. I’ve seen people now selling them for £150!
Keith Gooden
No!
Matt Sims
The demand is so strong. If you go and buy a motorhome and it’s got no gas bottles on it, the only way to get gas bottles is to go on eBay, Gumtree, or Facebook Marketplace and go and buy an empty bottle for cash, which is actually, in Calor’s eyes, illegal. It breaches their agreement. They’re not allowed to be sold.
Keith Gooden
But they’re not supplying any bottles through their standard agreement?
Matt Sims
That’s right. They have been switched off. They won’t supply you. So how are you meant to get a Calor bottle? So you had no choice but to go and buy one on the black market – eBay or Facebook or Gumtree, wherever.
Keith Gooden
I had a bottle for my barbecue at home and it was a blue one from a company down Yeovil way, which I used to get refilled in the Bath area near where I live. The guy that used to refill it for me sold up and closed down.
And I rang them up and I said, “I’ve got this bottle, what do I do with it?” And they said, “Well if you can get down to Yeovil, we can exchange it. But otherwise, there’s nothing that we can do.” So I went out and got myself a £10 Calor bottle. And it’s a good thing I did, I think!
Matt Sims
Yeah. Well, we were even going out and buying them as well for cash and selling them for cash so we could just help a customer get into the system, basically. We had no option. Otherwise, we were just turning people away. And they’d just spent £80,000 on a motorhome which had not been supplied with any gas bottles – can’t use it!
Keith Gooden
So why did Calor do that? Did they run out of bottles? Had the manufacturing stopped because of the pandemic or the war in Ukraine? What was the whole reasoning behind this?
Matt Sims
Well, there was a massive demand, wasn’t there? People went out and bought motorhomes, campervans and caravans in droves. So there was a huge demand and there just weren’t the bottles in the system. It’s interesting to note that 20% of Calor gas bottles that are returned empty have to be refurbished.
So they go into a holding area. Did you know there’s actually in the north of England an airfield that’s absolutely covered in empty gas bottles? Calor are renting an airfield and have filled it with empty gas bottles that they have to refurbish. One of the reasons they discontinued the small bottles is that it takes the same amount of time and cost to refill and refurb one of those as it does a 13-kilo bottle or even a six-kilo bottle.
So it was a commercial decision because they’re only making a couple of pounds per sale of these smaller bottles, to discontinue them. That’s why. And there was actually a guy who was working for Calor in Brazil who transformed Calor in that country. He was brought to the UK to revolutionise Calor in the UK and he did so. Part of that though, unfortunately for us in this sector, was that we saw the small bottles discontinued.
Refillable gas bottles
Keith Gooden
Okay, then – hopefully that’s tied some of the confusion around this. Here are the type of bottles you can get – self-refillable – Safefill, Gaslow, BP, AluGas and Gasit.
Matt Sims
Yeah, so these are all types of self-refill bottles. So people often will say, “Well, I’ll just refill my Calor gas bottle myself.” And you can actually buy an adapter on Amazon or eBay that will allow you to refill a Calor gas bottle. In Calor’s eyes that is illegal. It’s a breach of their terms and conditions.
Keith Gooden
Is it dangerous?
Matt Sims
It’s also very dangerous, yeah. And the biggest risk is that the bottle is never going to get refurbed. It’s never going to get inspected. Within the industry, refillable bottles have become very popular. So you can go and buy a bottle that is designed to be refilled by you at an Autogas dispenser. We’ll come on to those in a minute because they’re disappearing. I’ll talk about those in a second.
But if you buy a refillable bottle, you can obviously use it up and then refill it anywhere where you can find Autogas. The risk with those bottles is that they’re never inspected, because you don’t have to get one inspected. The recommendation is that it gets inspected every five years, or no more than every 10.
But I know people who have had them for 20 years and have never had them looked at. And the risk for Calor is that you take one of their bottles and fit a refill device to it. The bottle could be 30 years old when you got it. And then it’s never inspected again. So that’s against Calor’s terms and conditions to do that. A Calor bottle is an exchange bottle – you take it back empty and they give you a new bottle that’s full. And that’s the same with Flogas and Campingaz.
So if you are going to buy a refillable bottle, please get it inspected. Take it to a gas specialist who will inspect it for you. There are lots of them around. The other type is an underslung gas tank, where there are no bottles on the motorhome or campervan but there is a permanent tank fixed underneath with a refill point.
Keith Gooden
And on that subject, Matt, let’s hear from Jo.
Are LPG pumps being phased out?
Jo
We were thinking of changing our motorhome from normal Calor gas to LPG. However, I’ve just discovered that most of if not all the leading petrol stations are going to phase out LPG pumps by 2024. How is it I found this by accident only because I was looking into LPG? Why is it not being talked about nationally, when it affects every part of the travel industry from motorhomes, to caravans to cars – everywhere? I’d be really interested on your take on that.
Keith Gooden
So that’s Jo. She’s got concerns there about LPG disappearing from forecourts. She wants to know why it’s not being talked about and what we’re going to do.
Matt Sims
Well, it’s very true. Jo, I’m sorry you think it’s not being talked about. We’ve actually been talking about this for a while on the podcast. So Motor Fuel Group, who are the company behind Autogas, the people that put the pumps for gas refilling into fuel stations, have made a commercial decision to remove them from all future fuel stations by the end of 2024.
So the space that they take up is going to be replaced by EV charging points, probably. Because let’s face it, cars are increasingly going electric, and that at the moment is the future. It’s a different topic, I know. So being aware that Autogas is disappearing in the UK is really important, and maybe it’s not being talked about enough.
I know that Brownhills and other motorhome dealers have started introducing their own gas dispensing facilities so that customers who use gas in their motorhome or caravan have somewhere to refill it. On the continent, refillable gas bottles are really prolific. It’s quite easy to get hold of the gas.
The problem in the UK is that the drive for these pumps was never driven by motorhomes and caravans. There wasn’t the demand in the same way as there is on the continent because we’ve got Calor bottles here. The need for it was created by people driving cars that were big thirsty petrol engines being converted to gas, and those have disappeared.
No one’s converting big heavy-duty petrol engine cars to gas anymore, and so the demand for it has just simply disappeared. We’re being ignored as motorhomers and campervanners with refillable gas tanks – we’re a tiny percentage of that market.
Keith Gooden
But as Jo says, this is a pain in the you know what. Will there be fill-up points for motorhomers?
Matt Sims
Well, it’s interesting. I think there will be. As I say, a number of motorhome dealers have started installing their own because obviously, it will drive customers to them. And hopefully, when they’re they’re filling up their gas, they’ll go and buy something in the shop as well. But what’s interesting is we need to look beyond this.
I think we’re into an increasingly gasless society. So if you look at the future of motorhomes and campervans, we’re being told that it will be electric, and they will be all-electric. So we’ll have big lithium batteries with inverters that can run induction hobs, electric ovens and electric fridges and run them very effectively.
So, therefore, the need for gas in a leisure vehicle will, I think, start to disappear. I find it interesting that more and more motorhome manufacturers are already introducing diesel heating.
So the heating is powered not by gas but by diesel and possibly electricity. And then the appliances are going electric with lithium batteries and inverters. So we could well see the demand for gas disappear, which of course will just impact this industry even more.
Keith Gooden
Okay, well, we’ll keep an eye on that. And what about when we go abroad and see what the rest of the world is doing, the UK versus Europe versus the USA? What’s happening?
UK vs Europe vs America
Matt Sims
Yeah, so refillable tanks, as I say, on the continent and in the US are very, very commonplace. There are refillable types of bottles in each country. Often they’re unique to that country as Calor gas is to the UK.
So if you go to Europe and you’ve got a refillable bottle and you run out, you would have to buy that country’s bottle and that country’s adapter and regulator and change all of that on your motorhome or caravan. And then when you came back, you’d end up with this German bottle, for example, and you’d have to put your UK system back in place and of course get it gas safety tested as well.
So refillable bottles on the continent are really popular. If you’re going to the continent, I would definitely recommend investing in a refillable bottle. It’s a big initial outlay, but you’ll find it much more convenient if you’re over there using gas. And remember to buy the adapters for the refill pumps, because there are three adapters that you will need depending on which country you’re going to.
So if you go to the Gaslow website, they have all the detail there. We sell them at That Leisure Shop as well. So Spain has their own adapter and the UK has a different type of adapter on the end of that refill pump. In the USA, refillable gas tanks are very commonplace. RVs, as they call them, are generally much bigger than motorhomes here, and they have huge gas tanks on board.
And so LPG refill is very commonplace in the US. Although interestingly, they are starting to see more and more refillable gas bottles that are portable appearing on motorhomes over in the US. So gas is still prolific, but I think we will start to see it diminish in use in the motorhomes of the future.
What happens to empty or discontinued bottles
Keith Gooden
So what’s happening to all these discontinued bottles? You mentioned there’s a place in the UK where there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of them sitting there. I mean, you’ve got all these bottles which are now not going to be refilled with gas. What’s going to happen to them?
Matt Sims
I guess some of them will be scrapped and melted down. The 15-kilo butane bottle can easily be transformed into a 13-kilo Patio Gas bottle. So the regulator’s changed, it’s painted green and it can be used as a Patio Gas bottle.
And Patio Gas is really, really popular still. We love cooking outdoors in this country. Barbecue sales are bigger than ever. And there is a demand for Patio, that leisure gas. But most of the small bottles are going to end up in India or Africa.
There’s a huge demand for them there. They’re boom territories for gas. In fact, containers are being stopped almost every week with stolen gas bottles destined for Africa. I was talking to Calor about this only this morning, and again, a container was stopped only last week full of stolen bottles going to Africa.
Keith Gooden
Amazing, isn’t it?
Audience Q&A
Keith Gooden
Okay, so we’ve tried to do our best for you around gas. If you’ve got any more questions on this, please do get in touch – details at the end of the podcast. It is the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt!
Keith Gooden
Let’s delve into our audience Q&A. It’s all brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com. First of all, we’ve got David.
David: “What are the relative benefits of different gas types?”
David
Hi, Matt. We watch a lot of your podcasts and find them really informative. One thing that we haven’t seen you do, which we’d find really interesting, is if you could do a podcast on the relative merits of butane gas, LPG, particularly this new Gaslow system that is being advertised a lot and the possible reduction in the sizes of the bottles not being manufactured anymore. It’s all very confusing for us.
Keith Gooden
It’s confusing for you, David – imagine what my brain is like! It’s a bowl of spaghetti!
Matt Sims
Well, David, rewind and listen again! So the key difference, I’ll say it again, between butane and propane is the temperature at which they can operate. There is no tangible difference between the two. So propane will work at a much colder temperature than butane.
Now, if you’re going to use your motorhome or campervan in the winter, then you need to put propane on it. That, as far as I can work out, is the sole reason that propane is the go-to gas for the leisure vehicle industry. That’s the only reason I can ascertain.
Chris: “LPG versus Calor – any advantages?”
Keith Gooden
Chris in Worcester asks, “Is there any advantage to using an LPG tank instead of Calor gas?”
Matt Sims
Yeah, absolutely. Well, you won’t be faced with this issue of trying to find an empty bottle to get yourself started. But the challenge is going to be finding the refill points in the UK. They are disappearing by the end of 2024 – in fuel stations at least, anyway. So you’ll find that Autogas outlets will disappear. So if you’ve got one near you, you will see it disappear.
Keith Gooden
We were talking earlier about how some dealers will have outlets in store, but is it as involved as, say, a fuel retailer with tanks below the surface which are only accessible from certain points that have to be inspected as it’s a combustible material? Or can you just have a big tank which you can have on your premises?
Matt Sims
Yeah, so Autogas tanks are above ground. So at the fuel station that dispenses it, you’ll see them surrounded by metal poles so no one can drive into it. And you’ll see that real estate on the fuel station is cleared in place of an EV charging point, I suspect.
The other big benefit of an LPG tank, assuming you can find a refill point, is they’re generally much bigger than a gas bottle, so it will last a lot longer so you’re not refilling as often. So if you’re going on a long trip, you know it’s going to last you. But some people will put a gas bottle on their caravan and they’ll change it once every two years.
And this is one of the reasons why for Calor we’re such a small part of their whole business. You think they’re supplying bottles to all sorts of marketplaces and industries – the leisure vehicle industry is a tiny part of Calor’s business. And we are feeling that pinch as a result of that.
Keith Gooden
Would it be something that your business would look at, having an LPG outlet on the premises?
Matt Sims
Yeah, I would love one. We just don’t have the space. I mean, I would genuinely love one because I think it would attract people to us that want to refill. It gives the consumer a choice. We would then be able to resell refillable bottles.
And for our hire team, it would make it dead easy. We chew through gas, because when people are on a hire holiday, they don’t remember to turn the heating and the hot water off. They go out for the day and leave it all on.
And at a weekend in the winter, you can chew through a six-kilo bottle easily. So our hire team are really getting through bottles of gas, and when they’re in short supply, that does present us with a challenge. But we’re fortunate in that we’re supplied here by the Calor gas plant in South Wales.
And we seem to have no issue – we’ve never not been supplied with gas. So we carry a lot of six-kilo… I think we’ve got about 88 bottles in stock. So we’ve always got it. I mean, that could change, obviously, but I have to say the supply is improving all the time. But it will be interesting to follow this one and see how gas evolves and if I’m right.
Brian: “Will campervans need to have external gas connections in the future?”
Keith Gooden
Brian was at the Manchester show and left you this question on one of our paper forms. “A Cadac salesman suggested campervans will have to have external gas connections to be allowed on campsites in Europe in the future. Is this true?”
Matt Sims
I don’t know is the honest answer!
Keith Gooden
We’ll delve into that one, won’t we?
Matt Sims
Cadac, if you’re listening, can you get in touch? Can you help Brian? Because that’s the first I’ve heard about that being a requirement in Europe. I mean, an external gas connection point is a standard feature on many motorhomes and is often an option that people buy so you can connect your barbecue to the gas bottles on the van. Maybe they’re saying you can’t just connect them directly to the bottle. Well, we do at home.
Keith Gooden
We’ll get our crack team of investigative reporters on this one – stay tuned to the podcast.
Matt Sims
Come on, Cadac.
Keith Gooden
They sound like aliens from a Doctor Who episode.
Sue: “Is it possible to swap from gas to electric heating?”
Keith Gooden
Sue Croft is in Reading. “Is it possible to change gas heating and cooking to electricity, or do all motorhomes post-2020 have electric water heating?”
Matt Sims
What I’ve found is that about 10 years ago, maybe eight years ago, a lot of motorhomes were only supplied with gas heating and hot water, and the electric option on a Truma boiler was a cost option. And then we’ve seen more recently electricity and gas as standard. So the electricity came as part of the package.
And then again, more recently, we’ve seen more and more motorhomes and campervans being fitted with diesel heating and gas and electric hot water, which I think is a great feature because you’re not reliant on the supply of gas. Diesel is prolific, isn’t it? Can you change it? Yes, you could. It would be quite expensive.
You’d have to swap the boiler, possibly, or add a facility to it and add the electricity to it retrospectively, as it were. But not all motorhomes have electric water heating. Trying to heat a tank of water, so your boiler of water with an electric element, is very electricity hungry, so it uses a lot of energy.
Whereas on gas, it’s far more efficient and far more effective. And it’s the same with heating the motorhome. If you heat the motorhome with gas, it’s much quicker to get warm. On electric, the fan speed is frankly pretty pathetic. And the heat that comes out is really minimal. And I always say to people, heat the motorhome with gas and then maintain it on electric, assuming you’re on an electric hookup.
With diesel heating, of course, you’ve only got the option of diesel heaters. They are cheaper and noisier. And I think because of the cost, that’s why manufacturers are increasingly using diesel, plus the challenges around getting gas. But changing it is of course an option. You could fit a diesel heater retrospectively to your motorhome if you wanted to, but it’s going to have a cost.
Keith Gooden
Sue’s also under the impression that motorhomes manufactured after 2020 all have electric water heating. As far as you know, that’s not the case.
Matt Sims
No, not necessarily. I mean, I would say they have gas heating with electric added on as an inclusive option. I think we’re going to see more and more with diesel heating. And I think we’ll see diesel and electric as an option as well.
Keith Gooden
You’re right about electricity. An electric kettle just for a cup of tea will draw two kilowatts of energy, which is a huge amount when you think that the light in your living room is probably going to be a maximum of 100 watts. So you’re right. Converting electricity to heat energy is astoundingly inefficient.
Matt Sims
It is, yeah, and a gas kettle always boils quicker as well, doesn’t it, than an electric kettle? So gas is one of the most efficient and cleanest sources of energy that you can burn. The environmental impact of a gas flame is minimal. Electric is a much higher consumption of energy.
Keith Gooden
Okay, then it’s not like Animal Farm – electric all good, gas all bad. There are bits in the middle. Four legs good, two legs bad.
Get in touch with Matt and Keith
Keith Gooden
Okay, then. So this has been a complicated episode. I know it has. And if you’re sitting there thinking, “What do I do?” Keep in touch with us.
We will keep you abreast of every development that happens and with the Calor gas situation in this country as well. But we’ve tried to unfold as much of it as we can with the information that we’ve got. So if you’re still confused, we apologise, but if you’ve got any questions, you should get in touch. And how do they do that?
Matt Sims
You can do that really easily. Just head to www.motorhomematt.co.uk/askmatt. Fill in the form or record your question by hitting the orange button. Please give us your name and tell us where in the country you are. We love to hear your voice and to hear from you. And we love knowing where people are as well, don’t we?
Keith Gooden
We do. And what about YouTubers?
Matt Sims
You can find us on YouTube at Motorhome Matt. When you’re there, click subscribe and make sure you hit the little bell and then when we release a new video, YouTube will tell you.
