Anyone struggling to get bottled gas, can't get assured supplies anywhere, here in the Northwest anyway, its just luck of the draw and first come first served. even big suppliers dont know what will turn up on they're deliveries "if any.
Further confirmed this week, a big supplier in Colne Lancs also said, they just dont know what they are getting until delivery arrives but often reduced amounts and often none of the smaller bottles.
Our local suppliers are putting it down to increased demand (e.g. more people taking up camping because of the past Covid restrictions), as well as a shortage of bottles.
Personally, I think if Calor offered an amnesty for old, unused bottles for a reasonable fee, they might see a few more bottles being freed up.
As I understand it Covid caused people to invest in emergency gas cooking and lighting equipment and also to buy camping gear as holidays in Spain weren't available last summer.
The new customers bought out the stocks of filled propane and butane cylinders without returning any empties.
The refilling companies also had problems of staff sickness and transport difficulties especially when the country almost ran out of petrol and diesel.
Since campers with empty gas cylinders could not replace them with full ones the gas refill companies ran out of empty ones to refill. The only advice you could get was to try somewhere else or to come back later.
Rather than an amnesty scheme I would suggest issuing empty cylinder vouchers at the first registered supplier you visit, with them texting you when new supplies arrive but allowing you to exchange the voucher at any registered gas supplier.
Empty gas cylinders can be bought and sold on Ebay. My local car dump collects gas cylinders and I think returns them to the appropriate suppliers.
Whilst a shortage of gas cylinders may account for difficulties in obtaining supplies for leisure use, there are also reported problems in the supply chain to households in rural areas, not connected to the Natural Gas Grid, who use LPG for domestic heating, hot water and cooking.
A domestic system can be run on multiples of 47Kg cylinders but more commonly from a storage tank filled by road tanker, and some suppliers have,said that there is a shortage of suitably qualified delivery drivers.
Quote: Originally posted by MrWez on 22/3/2022
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Personally, I think if Calor offered an amnesty for old, unused bottles for a reasonable fee, they might see a few more bottles being freed up.
They did, you could surrender ANY unwanted Calor cylinder no questions asked to a Go Outdoor store and get a £10 voucher to spend in store! Think the offer has now expired, but there is a standing refund policy for returning unwanted cylinders, I quote "If you have your Cylinder Refill Agreement paperwork you will receive a 25-70% refund of the original CRA cost depending on how many years ago you purchased the gas bottle."
I'm sure most of us don't have a 'Cylinder Refill Agreement' as we inherited our cylinders with our s/h vans (or even bundled with a new van!), or picked them up s/h from ebay and the like, so Calor are not doing themselves any favours with that stance, the Go Outdoor scheme (if they publicised it properly!) would likely be far more effective!
I believe the cylinder shortage was only part of the problem, IIRC Calor were sourcing bulk LPG supplies from the Netherlands and there was a supply issue there as well! Not sure what the current supply issues are, but it does appear to be a Calor specific problem, other suppliers don't seem to have the same difficulties!
Quote: Originally posted by MrWez on 22/3/2022
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Personally, I think if Calor offered an amnesty for old, unused bottles for a reasonable fee, they might see a few more bottles being freed up.
They did, you could surrender ANY unwanted Calor cylinder no questions asked to a Go Outdoor store and get a £10 voucher to spend in store! Think the offer has now expired, but there is a standing refund policy for returning unwanted cylinders, I quote "If you have your Cylinder Refill Agreement paperwork you will receive a 25-70% refund of the original CRA cost depending on how many years ago you purchased the gas bottle."
Post last edited on 23/03/2022 10:35:05
Well that was well advertised! I never saw it, we have a Go Outdoors near us too as well as a couple of Butane bottles we no longer use. Oh well.
ISTR when I tried to trade a bottle in, although I had the paperwork, the bottle wasn't the same serial number as on the agreement (naturally I'd exchanged that bottle for a full one), so they wouldn't give me a refund. Apparently, that was for my own protection...
Quote: Originally posted by MrWez on 23/3/2022
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ISTR when I tried to trade a bottle in, although I had the paperwork, the bottle wasn't the same serial number as on the agreement (naturally I'd exchanged that bottle for a full one), so they wouldn't give me a refund. Apparently, that was for my own protection...
Can't help but feel Calor are their own worst enemy! Really don't make much effort to reclaim what must be thousands upon thousands of cylinders lying around unwanted! More interested in tying people up in bureaucracy that seems to be in no one's best interest! Pretty much had market dominance, so didn't need efficiency to maintain profits! - not an uncommon situation
How on Earth are you supposed to return the original cylinder when they operate an exchange system, not a refill system!!!!!!!
When empty 6 kg bottles are going for £40 plus on the likes of ebay and Gumtree, who is going to let Calor have them back for a Tenner or free to the local recycling centre?
Anyone has any empty Calor gas bottles around that they do not want, I would suggest putting them up for sale.
Just to rub salt into the wound, Fawley refinery is a couple of miles away from my back garden and for days on end they have been lighting up the sky burning off excess LPG through their flare stacks. Like I said in another thread a few days ago I paid £55 for a 15kg refill.--- ouch!
------------- The longest sentence known to man is "I do"
Quote: Originally posted by Logan1 on 27/3/2022
Just to rub salt into the wound, Fawley refinery is a couple of miles away from my back garden and for days on end they have been lighting up the sky burning off excess LPG through their flare stacks. Like I said in another thread a few days ago I paid £55 for a 15kg refill.--- ouch!
I have always thought about this question of refineries "burning off" gases. OK, maybe they are just waste gas, but it is clearly not good for the climate and most likely producing more noxious fumes in a few minutes than my diesel car in its lifetime.
If these gases must be burnt, then why not burn them to run a generator and put them to use?
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Topic: Wtruggling to get bottled gas
via mobile 22/3/2022 at 5:13pm
