I thought is was time I wrote about LPG gas. The gas is used for cooking, heating, water heater and when off electric, the fridge. We have a system (gaslow) where we have 2 bottles in an outer locker. The bottles are permanently mounted with a filling system attached. So when you need more gas you have to take the van to a petrol station, attached the pump and fill up in a similar way to how you would fill a car. All seems pretty straightforward.

There are a couple of horror stories on the web of vans catching fire while filling, and my understanding (although I have not tried it) is that Morrissons will not allow motorhomes to fill their tanks at their stations. In the UK you attached the nozzle by an insert and twist action then go to the pump and press the “fill” button until it stops. When you remove the pump you get a huge hiss of gas from the bit in the pump as the gas is kept under pressure in the tanks both onboard the van and in the petrol station. Enough pressure to make the gas a liquid I believe. All dead easy and we have never had any problems.

When you go abroad all the connectors are different so you have to carry adaptors. In France the adapter is a sort of cup and with the connection it seems like many pipes connected but it works. We have had major problems with the fact that pump is often positioned so you can only get down one side of it. This occurs more often than not. We have had to manoeuvre Bertie in some tight spots through 180 degrees to be able to get close enough to the pump, often holding up all the other customers in the petrol station. Looking at other people’s van the gas is normally on the same side as ours so I assume they have the same issues. As a result we hate filling up in France.

In Spain we have had big issues. The connector is a sort of pipe about an inch long (3cm). Basically every time we try to fill up we would have freezing gas squirting all over the place, twice we had to get attendants to come and assist. We thought the issue was the connector so we purchased a new one, and the two connectors are millimetres different, but the issues continue. The bloke who did our habitation check said it is simply that we are not getting the connector tight enough and suggested we put olive oil on the seal and tighten with a wrench. We have not tried this yet as we have not been in Spain since we got this advice.

We are heading to Italy. I’ve read that many petrol stations will not sell to motorhomes, not because of safety but because the tax regulations are different for gas used in cooking to that which is sold for propelling a vehicle, we will have to see. Given that not many garages sell LPG it could be fun filling up. UPDATE: we got gas in Italy at the 4th garage we tried.

All the experiences mean that we are stingy with the gas, we avoid using the heating and sit huddled in jumpers. If we use the heating a lot we need to fill up every week. If we are just cooking we need to fill up about every 2 months. If we are off grid and have the fridge on 24 hours a day then it’s nearer 6 weeks. I sometimes feel we make too much of filling up the LPG but sometimes if can get very tense (and very cold if you have your hands covered in freezing leaking gas).