# Butane/Gas Supply



## jennifercase (Dec 3, 2010)

Hi
We've just had central heating installed with a butane gas boiler. We currently have the normal orange butane bottles but one of these is lasting less than a day. 

Does anyone have any experience of having a tank installed? Any idea of approximate costs?

Alternatively, we'll get the bigger bottles.

Any comments would be welcome.

Thanks


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

When we had gas bottles we had a "thing" in the garden where we had 4 hooked up at the same time.
We switched to natural gas about 9 years ago.


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## jennifercase (Dec 3, 2010)

Pesky Wesky said:


> When we had gas bottles we had a "thing" in the garden where we had 4 hooked up at the same time.
> We switched to natural gas about 9 years ago.


I wish we had natural gas here - not an option unfortunately.


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Our neighbours have the big/ huge bottles, (outside in the garden again) and they're so pleased with the way it works that they didn't change to natural gas


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

I'd love to know how the cost compares to electric radiators. Did you work out how long it would take to recoup the installation costs, by any chance?


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

Alcalaina said:


> I'd love to know how the cost compares to electric radiators. Did you work out how long it would take to recoup the installation costs, by any chance?


That's SED  as someone on here once said (owdoggy, I believe)
Someone Else's Department.
OH is _puenting_ in Bilbao, but I'll ask him when he gets back Alcalaina. However:
We changed from electric, to gas bottles, to natural gas and it was about 10 years ago...
I think now it's actually more expensive to use natural gas than butano, but electric was abusive, _una ruina_ as they say. People here just couldn't afford to use the electric heating. These houses were originally used by Madridleños as weekend houses so, just like in the south, central heating wasn't at first a big issue. They were all _built_ with central heating, but not the best and certainly not thinking about economy. As soon as people moved in on a permanent basis they needed to get the heating changed.


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## jennifercase (Dec 3, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> I'd love to know how the cost compares to electric radiators. Did you work out how long it would take to recoup the installation costs, by any chance?


We didn't/couldn't work out the comparision. 

We live in Catalunya, on the coast between Tortosa and Tarragona. We hadn't realised how cold it would be in the winter. We get really cold winds here and it feels colder here than it does in the UK quite often (I lived in West London in England). We had a house built but the insulation isn't great. Fortunately we did have the pipes put in the walls for central heating when the house was built. After 4 winters of surviving with a few oil-filled electric radiators and an open fire, we'd had enough of being cold. 

At the moment the gas-fired boiler seems to only work for a few hours on a new bottle. After about 4 or 5 hours it cuts out indicating that the gas has run out but there is still quite a bit in the bottle. We weighed a supposedly empty bottle this morning and, compared to a new bottle, it seemed to have used only about 2 or 3 kg of gas. This doesn't make sense to us. Surely if the boiler was designed to be used with gas bottles, it should use the whole bottle?

Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Thanks


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

If you are using the ordinary small bottles ( 12,5kg ) which are butane that is the problem . Butane has a higher vaporisation point than propane & as the temperature drops so the amount of gas you can get out of the bottle becomes less. Normally when central heating is installed they install 2 banks of cylinders , if you've got room , 5 & 5 , if not 3& 3. One bank running & the other spare. Most systems around here are 5/5 & 5 cylinders only lasts 15 days .  I.e. one large 35kg cylinder is consumed every 3 days at a cost of 53€'s. I used to install cages & gates for cylinders & when a chap who has lived here for years told me the consumption rate I thought he was joking ( he changed to oil ) . All the people who use it that I know only get around the above consumption even when they try to economise. If you can only use small cylinders then you would be better changing to small propane cylinders as they will work down to a far lower ambient temp. 

Repsol: resultados, dividendos, informacion corporativa, Antonio Brufau y directivos - repsol.com

As you can see from the above site, there's 1,5kg less in a propane cyl. but the price is less. The large propane ,35kg, is far dearer than 3 small bottles as the price of the small bottles is regulated by the government but the larger bottles are not. So you are paying nearly 5x the price of a small bottle for just over 3x the content !


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

I don't know if this has got anything to do with it, but I do remember the gas bottles freezing when the temperature was really low.

And what Gus says about banks of gas bottles - that's what I was trying to explain before.


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

Only this morning our gas bottle for the showers, which is on the north side of the house, wouldn't give out enough gas to heat the water for my wifes shower , but the temp. was @ 0ºc. 
It's very hard in winter to use all the available gas & the problem gets worse as the amount of liquid in the bottle is used up. I tend to change to a full one & use up the remainder in a portable fire.


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

We use propane in our portable gas heater because it apparently gives out less water vapour than butane, hence less condensation and black mould. We have it on about 8 hours a day at the moment and a bottle lasts about a week.

We also use propane for cooking and hot water, which lasts about six weeks in summer, four weeks in winter. Would we be better using butane for the boiler?


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## gus-lopez (Jan 4, 2010)

No , propane is better in the winter for anything where the bottle is outside & exposed to low ambient temps.


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## Dolphin. (Aug 1, 2010)

My big cylinders ran out a few days ago, the man has come and gave me 2 more but how do i get the heating back on?


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

Dolphin. said:


> My big cylinders ran out a few days ago, the man has come and gave me 2 more but how do i get the heating back on?


hello stranger!!


are the new bottles connected?

if not, connect them/one of them

if the gas ran out completely there is almost certainly a reset button somewhere on the pipe where the gas supply enters the building

you might have to re-light the boiler if it's old - some new ones re-light pretty much automatically


if you can't find any instructions in the house call your rental agent - that's what they are paid for!!


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## Dolphin. (Aug 1, 2010)

Hello lovely, thanks you were right there was a dial thing which i turned and i heard a psssft like it was doing something.... i'll give it 30 mins to see if it comes back on, and check the hot water etc... if not i'll call the rental agents, thanks


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## Dolphin. (Aug 1, 2010)

All sorted now thanks!

Happy new year  xx 

Im off out out down to clubs on the beach front now, have a top night guys


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