Age of Gaslow bottles

[PaulW2]

I have a Gaslow (2x11kg) setup which still works well. Hoses have been replaced when they have gone out of date, but the bottles themselves are now 12 years old. They appear to be in pristine condition, except that those fiddly level gauges have broken off. Is it ok to keep using the bottles at this age?

Thanks
Paul

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

I thought the older bottles had a 15 year "shelf" life, have you checked the stamping around the lower rim?
Mine ate coming up for " end of shelf" life but as they have never seen any sunshine and haven't been knocked about ,I will be using them for a little longer.
The people that sell them will probably tell you the opposite.

 

[Lenny HB]

If they are passed there date you are not allowed to refill them.
We exchanged our 10 year old Alugas bottles a couple of weeks ago in Germany it was nearly ½ the price of buying new bottles without an exchange. I don't think you can do that with Gaslow.

 

[Manic]

Gaslow will give you a discount of 10% when your bottle are out of date but that’s not great when you can buy them cheaper than the discount price from elsewhere.

 

[StillGoing]

Worth a read of the first section:

Gaslow replacement scheme

The outside of the cylinders may look fine but you’ve no idea what is going on inside.

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[monzer]

Geezo 10% is pretty poor from gaslow. I'm sure they could do much better than that.

 

[Lenny HB]

Geezo 10% is pretty poor from gaslow. I'm sure they could do much better than that.

My 14kg "Alugas are €370 new, for exchange it was €220 and they charged €21.50 for fitting. He found a cracked fitting and had to add another fitting as the inlet was slightly higher, didn't charge for the fittings so fitting didn't really cost me anything.

 

[PaulW2]

I thought the older bottles had a 15 year "shelf" life, have you checked the stamping around the lower rim?
Mine ate coming up for " end of shelf" life but as they have never seen any sunshine and haven't been knocked about ,I will be using them for a little longer.
The people that sell them will probably tell you the opposite.

Thanks - just had a look and you are right. The date when it was manufactured was April 2011, but to the right of that they also stamped 2026. So that must be presumably be the expiry date

 

[PaulW2]

If they are passed there date you are not allowed to refill them.
We exchanged our 10 year old Alugas bottles a couple of weeks ago in Germany it was nearly ½ the price of buying new bottles without an exchange. I don't think you can do that with Gaslow.

I wouldn't want to take chances, but as I fill them myself I guess I could easily just have kept doing it in blissful ignorance

 

[Figaro]

Is the date stamp in just one place on the lower rim ? Or stamped in places all round
I've looked for it on mine before but never been able to see a date, although I was concentrating on the top of the bottle as I assumed it would be there

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[PaulW2]

Worth a read of the first section:

Gaslow replacement scheme

The outside of the cylinders may look fine but you’ve no idea what is going on inside.

Thanks. I think I will replace them when they expire. So they will accept my old bottles, but it can't be couriered to them. I assume this means you must take it yourself? That would cost me more than 10% of the purchase price I would think!

 

[PaulW2]

Is the date stamp in just one place on the lower rim ? Or stamped in places all round
I've looked for it on mine before but never been able to see a date, although I was concentrating on the top of the bottle as I assumed it would be there

Mine has a section of hieroglyphics in one part of the lower rim. This includes dates - in my case 2011 04 2026. Which I now understand to mean manufactured April 2011, expiry 2026

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

If you are in the Brownhills club they do discounts at various times of the year, with 30% off. That's quite a lot off a couple of gaslow bottles.

 

[Figaro]

I think it may be tucked around the back on mine, but I'll have another look tomorrow

 

[TUCANO]

Maybe give Basildog a call. His field of expertise exactly.

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[Winger]

I have a Gaslow (2x11kg) setup which still works well. Hoses have been replaced when they have gone out of date, but the bottles themselves are now 12 years old. They appear to be in pristine condition, except that those fiddly level gauges have broken off. Is it ok to keep using the bottles at this age?

Thanks
Paul

I’ll take them off your hands and collect for free, I like to live on the edge

 

[Bertilak]

The outside of the cylinders may look fine but you’ve no idea what is going on inside.

I'm sure I've been sold (legal) Calor refills, where the blue paint has chipped off to show the old olive green underneath. I thought they switched to blue c20-25 years ago... I assume Calor periodically recertify with a proper hydraulic proof test, but it looks like the cylinder itself could be ancient. I doubt they do internal inspections though. Perhaps a pressure vessel inspector is needed?

 

[Lenny HB]

thought they switched to blue c20-25 years ago...

I was buying blue ones in the early 70's.

 

[bigtree]

I was buying blue ones in the early 70's.

That might have been the changeover period but I was using the olive bottles then, they are much thicker than Gaslow bottles.

 

[Northernraider]

Mine are dated 2011 too and expire 2026. I'll use them to the end if I have the van that long .

I can guarantee the expiry date has room for error to cover their arse so probably good a few years after that too.

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