Refilling gas bottles

Hi yu NTVRX,
It's a very good point you make, and one i have thought about for some time, but the problem here in Tassie is , because of OH&S in a lot of places you can't get your bottle refilled you have to swap&go, but again you pay for 9kgs and only get 8.5kgs, and in most cases the price varies from place to place.
Cheers.
baz

One kg of gas = 1.96 lt...close enough to call it a 2:1 ratio.

I think 60 cents/Lt might be conservative....So charged by the litre, it would be $11 +

It is not the same as filling your car with gas. A bottle is not "self serve". There are many expenses involved that are not applied to car filling...

I think if one was to actually work out what the per litre charge should be, it might be about the same or maybe more than the current charge.

I think before considering a petition, one should consider the old adage - be careful what you ask for because you just might get it -.

Never realised there were so many whingers out there.

Hi NTVRX

I may be incorrect, so putting that upfront…but I’ll toss this into the mix!

Whilst bottles may be marked 9kg, they are not filled to capacity due to expansion, so with a 9kg bottle you will not be 9kg of gas in any case (or shouldn’t be), is my understanding. A bottle marked 8.5kg is actually 9kg in reality.

On price, I suspect the cost of the gas is secondary to the cost of having someone fill it. So the “labour” cost of filling a half full bottle versus an empty bottle is essentially the same.

Why the variance between various suppliers – like most things, different outlets may have different cost structures or simply charge what the market will bear! So I guess it pays to shop around…

Cheers, Baz – The Landy

Lets agree on something.

Bottles have lids and caps. Cylinders have valves and manifolds.

; 0)

The OP, in trying to compare auto LPG and BBQ LPG is comparing apples with oranges.
Auto LPG is a different gas mix to household LPG. Auto LPG can vary considerably in its constituents, whereas household LPG is always around 99% propane.

Elgas supply household LPG from a dedicated household LPG operation, and Elgas's Autogas division is named Unigas.
The Unigas website clearly states that Autogas and household LPG are different products from two different refining streams.
The other LPG-supply companies have a similar division of Autogas from household LPG.

http://www.unigas.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28&Itemid=35#4

Autogas comprises a mix of hydrocarbons, and the Fuel Standards Act does not require any particular constituent gas, or gas mix.
The gases used in Autogas are mostly propane and butane, but there can be many others as well - and the propane content can vary from 30% to 99%. Butane has the closest properties to petrol.
Autogas is essentially a waste product from refining, it was burnt off for decades because it was regarded as having no use as a fuel.

The big cylinders used to supply household gas bottle refills, are filled from a dedicated household LPG tanker, not an Autogas tanker.
Household LPG has to contain around 99% propane, because household LPG appliances are jetted for propane. Butane requires different jet orifices.

You CAN use Autogas in household appliances, in a pinch - but the burn results will vary according to the particular Autogas mix you've been supplied with. A high butane content Autogas will burn poorly in household appliances.

As far as the household LPG gas bottle costs go - well, to compare Autogas costs with bottled LPG costs is comparing bulk usage, to bottled usage, where the costs are substantially higher because of the vastly increased handling costs associated with bottles.

The cost of LPG is set internationally, and we have little control over it. The price-setting is done by the Saudis (who are the worlds biggest LPG producers) and it is called the Saudi Aramco Contract Price (Saudi CP) and is expressed in $US per metric tonne.
The Saudi CP is set on the propane and butane commodity prices, and published on the first business day of every month, and remains fixed for the remainder of that month.

As regards the 8.5Kg VS the 9Kg argument - all the "9Kg" household LPG bottles are supposed to be 8.5Kg. What happened is that because of the huge number of manufacturers and suppliers, some got greedy and started claiming their bottles held 9Kg of gas. They don't, they were scamming you with their claims.

Another scam is the dip tube length in the bottle which governs the fill height. All LPG bottles are only filled to about 80% capacity to allow for gas expansion. The dip tube length can vary substantially between manufacturers - thus you can be short-changed in a refill done by a servo, if you have a bottle with a long dip tube.

LPG refills should be done by gas weight, but very few refillers do it. All gas bottles vary in tare weight, and this tare weight is stamped on the neck of the bottle.
Elgas, who run Swap-and-Go are probably the fairest of all the household gas suppliers. They fill their bottles by LPG weight and they will accept out-of-date LPG bottles at no extra cost.
Testing and re-certifying an LPG bottle is big dollars, and most people scrap them because it's cheaper to buy a new one.

Servos and other on-site refillers are a real gamble as to what you get, and they care little about whether you get the correct amount of LPG or not, in a refill done on the spot. I've found that businesses doing on-site LPG refills hardly exist today, except in country areas. The costs and dangers of refilling done on-site are high.

Elgas have a superb website with a vast amount of accurate info (FAQ's) on household LPG, and lots of advice. One thing that few people realise is the laws regarding the amount of gas bottles you can carry, and how they must be retained on any vehicle, when being carried. These laws are important and must be obeyed.

http://www.elgas.com.au/swapngo/swapngo-faq

I bet your post on the other forum didn't descend into pedantic bickering about bottles or cylinders & if staffed supermarkets are dearer than unstaffed!
It's high time that the moderators did something about the endless thread crapping here.
It's makes it very hard to follow the gist of the original post & disrespects the OP.
End of rant!

The bigger picture is you are paying for a service and the gas cost is only a minor consideration in the total cost of service in the same way as buying bottled water.
Regardless if the bottles are full are empty they still require loading and unloading, freighting, storage, use of precious and expensive retail space etc. The gas inside the bottles is only a small cost component

In the rural area where I live the gas tanker fills up the BBQ refilling tanks, the cooking and heating gas tank at the hospital and the autogas tank at the local servo all from the same tanker!

so what are the rules here? Is the gas supplier not doing the right thing by not supplying the two different blends of gas?

a question I have no answer for.

frank

Forget the capacity because the actual gas amount contributes very little to the price, the majority of the price is a service charge.

Most places work on each employee generating minimum $100 per hour so if it takes 15-20 minutes you pay part off.

I can't say I'd lose much sleep after being "ripped off" 500 gm of gas. Probably use the equivalent in a single overtaking manoeuver.

We tend to use a bit of wood for cooking.

Bob

Gday,
Sorry if someone has already covered this , but I gave up reading the replies when the topic turned into a bitch session.......

But........Find a decent camping shop or someone who weighs your bottles.
My parents owned a camping shop many years ago which used to fill bottles. We would pick the bottle up, give it a shake, and if there was a reasonable amount of gas in it, put it on the scales and weigh it...........if there was a kg of gas in it, deduct the price of a kg of gas from the filling price. Its not rocket science..........just find someone prepared to do it. I actually thought it was law to have a set of scales.
Otherwise weigh your bottle yourself and tell them how much gas you want........if they aren't prepared to believe you or weigh it themselves, go somewhere else.

My local servo used to pick up your bottle, give it a shake and say..........what do you reckon? half full?..........Sometimes you win sometimes they do but if you keep going back it all works out in the wash.......................

Cheers