Tag Archives: Safefill

Excellent News from Lodge Farm Leisure…

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Caravan Servicing, General, LPG, LPG Refilling Info, Maintenance

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obj7geo7pg8p19If you around the Nottingham, Mansfield or Grantham area Lodge Farm Leisure are now fully equipped to refill you Safefill, Gas-It or Gaslow systems having recently installed their own LPG refilling equipment. Chris and the guys have probably beaten all the other caravan servicing and even caravan dealers by being the first to install this equipment. With the increasing cost of conventional bottle exchange and the recent recall by one supplier of some of their cylinders it makes sense for caravanners and motor homes to move over to a refillable system. Currently their price for LPG is 65 pence per litre and they are aiming to be 5p per litre cheaper than other stations in the area, which is great news!

We have been using Safefill since we started caravanning and have easily covered the cost of the cylinder. With more and more caravans and motor homes now coming equipped with state of the art solar panels, moving over to a refillable gas system makes the task of planning ‘off grid’ stops so much easier as you can always start your trip with a full tank of gas and top up if required!

I’m sure in the coming months other caravan service centres and dealers will try to play catch up with Lodge Farm Leisure… in the meantime if you are in the area, you now know where to get a fill up.

Directions to Lodge Farm Leisure are on their website.

Still taking two bottles on holiday?….

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by in General, LPG, LPG Refilling Info, Maintenance

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Safefill are well known for their red 15 litre (7.56Kg of LPG) refillable gas cylinders and we have been using one these for around two years now. We have saved quite a bit of money when compared to using the rental/exchange cylinders that are available.

One of the biggest advantages is we can always set off camping with a full cylinder of gas and never have to worry about running out. We can easily check the contents through the semi transparent cylinder and if required, take the cylinder out of the caravan, put it in the car and re-fill at the nearest LPG station. There are a growing number of Morrisons petrol stations (over 50 at the time of writing) that have LPG pumps and we have never had any problems filling our cylinder in Morrisons.

Image (c) Safefill

Image (c) Safefill

However one of the things people always raise is ” it’s not big enough, we would need two cylinders” OK fair comment and to answer this Safefill have now introduced a new blue 20 litre cylinder… that holds 10.08Kg of gas (that is the equivalent of two and a half 3.9Kg Calor gas cylinders or over one and a half 6Kg Calor gas cylinders) and one of the best things is the price is exactly the same as the red cylinder – £149.99.

At an average LPG pump price of 80 pence per litre, that means it will cost around £16 to fill up from empty… how much would it cost to exchange two 3.9Kg Calor or one 6Kg Calor? (At the time of writing a 3.9Kg Calor is about £15.50 and a 6Kg Calor is around £20.00)

So if you use a lot of gas or are travelling in Europe (European filling adaptors are available) coupled with the weight saving that a refillable cylinder gives over steel cylinders (are you struggling with your nose weight?) and the advantages of being able to always set off with a full cylinder of gas what’s not to like!

To find LPG refilling sites have a look on the Links page or download the Safefill  Refilling POI’s for your GPS from their web site.

S

PS… When we bought our Safefill cylinder back in 2011 I did a review – Safefill refillable gas cylinders

Hey… someone listened!

23 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Blog updates, General, Help Guides, LPG Refilling Info, Web sites

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Well, I think they did! OK what am I on about? Well, if you have read through my ramblings about the Safefill refillable gas cylinder, one of the comments I had at towards the end was the fact that I had to create my own POI file for my GPS from the map of Safefill accredited filling stations and dealers on their website. I thought that Safefill should have this on their website to make it a lot easier for people that are not quite as savvy on creating POI files.

Well, it seems that good customer service still exists from some companies and they have now made it easy to get a POI file for your GPS.

I tried it out and it’s quite easy, click on the “GPS Download” button on the home page or the Refilling page and it directs you to the contact us area where you fill in your contact details click on request GPS download and click on submit…. a few seconds later a link to the download page arrives in your email in box. Continue reading →

LPG filling stations in Europe

07 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Blog updates, General, LPG Refilling Info, Travelling In Europe, Web sites

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Following a question that I replied to on Swift Talk, about LPG filling stations in the UK and Europe, I couldn’t find a website that had all of the UK and Europe listed. So I started searching for any website that listed LPG filling stations in various countries as I thought at least if there was a directory with them all in one place, it would be a start.

I eventually came across the French site “Annuaire des stations GPL françaises” or “French LPG stations directory” which seems to have links to sites that cover most European countries. The site is in French, but has a small flag on the right that translates it into English.

The site is easy to use and has current pricing for LPG for nearly all the sites listed. It also has a news section which lists sites that are closed and new LPG filling stations. If you click on the “Download” tab at the top it takes you to a page where you can download POI files for your GPS or Smart Phone.

However, the gem for me and what I was originally seeking can be found listed under the tab “Other Sites”. It’s a list of sites that have details fo LPG stations in 17 countries…. how Australia got in there I’ll never know!

If you have an LPG fuelled tow vehicle, motorhome or refillable cylinders, this is a site to bookmark. It has almost everything you could need if you need to fill up with LPG while in Europe (or Australia for that matter!) and certainly for France, lists the current prices in Euros per Litre. I’ve added it to my links page… you could always just bookmark that instead !

S

Oswestry….. arrival

11 Saturday Feb 2012

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Arrived at Oswestry C & CC site at 12:20 yesterday after an 80 mile drive, which considering it was a Friday only took 1:40.  Leaving home, there was just the odd snowflake, but most of the way here was dry and clear. Only when we got to the outskirts of Wrexham did we get light drizzle.

The warden here is very friendly and virtually gave us our choice of pitches, I think there are only eight or ten caravans and motorhomes on site at the moment. We decided on the far end of the site and the warden walked down with us to guide us on to the pitch.

All set up

Setting up only takes us about 20 minutes, and the kettle normally goes on… or the beer and wine are opened, depending on the weather. This time was a little different. Sue filled the Aquaroll while I powered up the van’s electrics and handled the pink stuff and wastehog at the other end of the van. Returning the watering can to the front locker, I also turned on the Safefill gas bottle and went to turn the electrics on, shut the taps, fire up the heater and turn the water pump on. I always use a gas ring on the hob to purge any air out of the gas line… the ring lit… and the heater soon followed. Now for the water. I shut the drain tap and pressed the pump ‘on’ button…. nothing. Hmm. Frozen up. Bugger. I could hear the relay clicking to activate the pump, but I couldn’t hear it run. I know we were below freezing in Manchester a few nights ago, and I thought I’d got all the water out of the system anyway. Apparently not. Continue reading →

Caravan & Motorhome Exhibition 2012 – Manchester

19 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Events, General

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Well Sue and I made our first visit to the Caravan and Mortorhome Exhibition to-day. It was in fact our first visit to any caravan type exhibition, so we didn’t know what to expect. We only live a few miles outside Manchester and knew when we were on the M60 at 10:45 this morning it was going to be busy.  There were already delays three junctions away. However, we are made of sterner stuff in Manchester and we pressed on. We eventually arrived and parked in one of the Trafford Centre car parks, a short walk… no more than five minutes from the ‘Event City’ halls. The queue to get in only took about 10 minutes and I think the delay was due to the fact everyone was in the same queue… if they had split off everyone that had pre bought their tickets it would have been a little quicker. Once inside… it was warm! top tip – wear light layers and take some water! Continue reading →

Updates to the blog

16 Monday Jan 2012

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Hi

Over the last couple of days I have posted some new pages. Equipment reviews now has  a piece about our Avtex TV and I have just finished one about our Safefill refillable gas cylinder.

Back in May/June last year while I was researching everything we would need to go with our new caravan, I collected a lot of ‘bookmarks’ for websites that we thought were useful and would need in the future, or that we eventually bought stuff from. So to help anyone else looking for information, I’ve started a links page, with links to the sites we used. There are over fifty links on the page, and I’ve tried to organise them in to some sort of order. If nothing else, at least I know where to look for stuff again! It also makes it easier if someone asks me about something… I can just point them at the links page.

I have also posted another help guide…. this time on understanding the dynamics of towing. It basically gives an insite into whats going on with the white box on wheels behind you. I’m part way through writing one about simple electrical fault finding on a caravan’s electrical system. Hopefully that will be ready in a few days. Someone has asked me if I can write something about modifying or altering wiring and making terminations… I’ll see what I can do in the near future.

I have a link at the top of the page “Site Reviews” I’m still not sure if this is something that I want to get into really as there are so many places on the internet that offer site reviews… do we need another one? Still thinking about that one.

S

Our first trip…

12 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in General, Trips

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Well, we had bought it, got all the equipment we thought we needed so I suppose we better try it out!

Where to go was the next question. As it happened, a chap had joined the Caravan Talk forum and was canvasing for help from the contributors…. what did they want in a caravan site. Now, that was a bit of a leading question and as expected, he got answers fired at him with both barrels… and what one person wanted was soon shot down by others as not being what anyone else wanted at all. I kind of felt sorry for him in a way, but admired him for actually taking the time to respond to all the posts. It was decided, we would visit this site for the weekend, so I ring up and booked in for Friday 22nd July for two nights. Oh yes…. I guess you want to know the site, Lady Heyes near Frodsham.

Continue reading →

Collecting our new van…

12 Thursday Jan 2012

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Well, I’ve very nearly brought you up-to-date. You now know – if you have read “Hello world” how we got to this point. The day of collection arrived – 6th July 2011 which coincidentally was the same date that 2 years previously I had set off with a group of other pilots to fly single engined aircraft round the world. I hoped that the same spirit of adventure waited for Sue and I with our new caravan.

As usual, it was raining when we arrived at Glossop Caravans. We were early, so sat in the car watching the rain pour off the roofs of the caravans in front of us. If you have ever been to Glossop Caravans, you will know that the car park is up a steep ramp and overlooks the site so you can see almost everything. I have to take my hat off to the chap manning the car park, throughout  the time we were there, he never deserted his post and remained directing traffic in the downpour. Glossop Caravans were very efficient, the day before we were due to collect, they telephone us with the exact time we needed to be there and with a list of items that we needed to bring with us. I had in the boot of the car one 110Ah Leisure Battery and one Safefill Gas Cylinder…. and a bunch of paperwork.

Continue reading →