Patio Heaters and Gas BBQs: Calor's Rip-off Concept: 'Patio Gas' !

[Alan Dempster]

Evening All,

Just curious to know if those of you who are rich and un eco-friendly enough to buy a Patio Heater have succumbed to the latest Calor Gas trick of using the genuine 'Patio Gas' product, or whether people are dumping the supplied regulator with these things, and then going out to get a conventional screw-in (Propane) regulator for the standard orange Propane gas bottles?

There seem to be two types of fittings for regulators on Patio Heaters:

- Push fit, designed to take a 13kg green bottle of 'Patio Gas' (pure propane, but +10% more expensive)

- Traditional screw-fit for Propane, takes standard orange Propane cylinders, at about £14 for 13kg.

Also would be interested to know which gas cylinder folks prefer for BBQs:

- 13kg Propane, or

- 15kg Butane (blue)

Any insight welcomed!

Alan

[Mary Fisher]

If I were using the barbecue in very cold weather (I wouldn't but I'm getting soft in my dotage) I'd use propane because I know from hard experience that butane gas freezes at low temperatures. Some clever person will give the exact temperature here:

Thank you :-)

For using the barbecue in more comfortable temperatures I'd use butane.

Except that, since we use gas for other purposes all the year round we only use propane for all of them, saves having to have two spares.

Also, we use charcoal for most of our barbecue cooking ... but we do have two of the double burner gas ones and they're very useful for baking and roasting when you haven't an oven.

Mary

[Andy Hall]

I think you'll find it's defined by the manufacturer.

My (Weber) one is propane only.

.andy

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[Mike Barnes]

ITYM "smart-ass"

-138.33 degrees C

What's more relevant is that it has a high boiling point, -0.5 degrees C. Below this temperature, when you open the valve, the liquid just sits in the cylinder quietly chuckling to itself.

For comparison, propane boils at -42 degrees C.

When I used to camp in winter in Scotland, I learned that if I didn't want a cold breakfast, I had to keep the butane bottle in the bottom of my sleeping bag overnight.

You're welcome.

[Mary Fisher]

No, I have the utmost respect for someone who can be bothered to look up such details when I can't - and don't have them in my head.

Yes, it was in Galloway one Easter, in our tent, when we discovered that the bottle didn't work. We'd gone to bed wearing all our clothes, even hats, and with skins and coats over the duvet. When we woke up the water in our glass was frozen, the water in the kettle and we had to get up and pick up sticks to light a fire to melt the kettle ice and make tea.

Having spent a couple of Christmases and New Years half way up a mountain in our little caravan, in snow and ice, we've been grateful for propane. But the caravan lives there and in summer we want to make proper meals (not just barbecues), so propane is our gas of choice for all-year-round use.

:-)

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Can't you fit a different regulator for other bottles?

Mary

[Andy Hall]

Possibly, although they do say to only use propane in the manual.

I don't know whether the calorific value is different and perhaps that affects the appliance rating?

.andy

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[Christian McArdle]

If I did succumb, I run it off natural gas. That way, you don't have to worry about the canister running out. Also, you don't have to store the large bottle on the limited patio space.

As it happens, I have a charcoal mini-Chiminea that sits on the table. It uses renewable fuel (i.e. wood).

Christian.

[Andy Hall]

Natural gas is as well.... it's purely a matter of timescale ;-)

.andy

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[Mary Fisher]

I always feel that butane is hotter but nobody agrees, they all say I'm an irrational female.

Who am I to argue?

:-)

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Spouse is going to build me an earth oven to cook in but it will be far bigger than what you have (I can't even pronounce it never mind spell it!). We're saving and drying timber.

Mary

[Set Square]

I think that butane is usually *cheaper* per unit of energy. Propane has the advantage that it works in lower temperatures. But if it was cold enough to need propane, I wouldn't want to be on the patio anyway!

[Andy Hall]

Is this going to make you an earth mother ? ;-)

.andy

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[Mary Fisher]

If you had under-flag heating you'd be OK ...

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Been that for a very long time ... I'm told.

Mary

[John]

With the usual disclaimer regarding manufacturers instructions taking preference over other info its generally true to say that Propane at

37millibars or Butane at 28millibars pressure passed through the same injectors gives almost identical heat performance. Of course if the book says only use Propane you will probably have a hell of a job getting anyone to say otherwise. I've just had a long session getting a cooker manufacturer to agree the ONLY difference in their Natural Gas and LPG versions of the same unit is in the injectors. We ended up going through the components list piece by piece :-(

[Steve Walker]

We have a gas water heater in a cottage in France. The manufacturer recommends using one propane bottle or two butane bottles in parallel to feed it. I think the problem is that with only one bottle, the liquid boiling to keep up with the high rate of gas usage causes the liquid to cool too much (latent heat of vaporisation and all that stuff). Propane can stand the drop in temperature, but to keep butane gassing sufficently, you have to minimise the temperature drop by only taking half as much from each bottle.

Steve W

[Pete C]

Hi,

If a butane cylinder gets too cold one way to it going is to pee on it...

cheers, Pete.

[Andrew Simpson]

Alan,

I went down the initial route of buying a Butane bottle from Shell gas as I didn't fancy shelling out nearly 35 quid for a calor gas patio gas bottle from B&Q. All is well with a Butane bottle for up to 2 hours when the gas seems to magically run out. The next day the bottle seems fully charged and off it goes again. Then I noticed after an hour of use the bottom half of the Butane bottle would freeze over. Thats when I found that Butane doesn't work very well in colder whether (still talking at least 10 degrees though).

I will be switching to Propane gas after being laughed at by a Calor Gas stockist for trying to use Butane.

Butane apparently is cheaper than propane but try telling my Patio heater that when it is trying to get the Butane out of the bottle....

Andrew.

[Mary Fisher]

That might work with a cartridge but not with the size we use. We'd have added to the ice on the outside. Well, if there were an army to pee on it it might ...

Mary