Cooking with gas

[markn]

Hello

We have relatively recently bought our 9 acres of the Dordogne and are just getting to grips with the essentials before we move out permanently in September.  Excuse the pun but we have a burning question - I understand the gas in the various bottles at the petrol stations are either propane or butane but what are they used for.  Also, are the big white ones next to houses LPG(e.g. totalgaz) ?

The question arises because we want to cook on gas and want to know which cooker to choose and whether and what modifications can or have to be made to it.   Our supply of choice would be a tank buried in the grounds.

Any help gratefully received

Mark

[Val_2]

The most common form of cooking gas is Butagaz in the mid-blue bottles or Total gas in the dark blue bottles sold at all supermarkets and petrol stations and need to be kept where they won't freeze. Propane is normally green and not for keeping inside the house and can be other colours of bottle depending on the suppliers - you should always check what you are buying. The bouchons in the garden are nearly always Butane and are reservoirs for cooking and heating and have to be topped up regularly by a tanker.

[Clair]

try a search on www.google.fr for "citerne gaz" or just type "antargaz" "primagaz", who seem to be the main players here.

Bear in mind the disruption for the installation, as well as the rental fee for the tank.

We chose bottled gaz for cooking and just got the "jets" changed on our cooker; the bottles are found every village shop: you pay upfront for the bottle and exchange it for a refill when empty, paying for the gas only. Keeping all the paperwork ensures a refund should you choose to return it for any reason.

Clair

[Val_2]

I wouldn't recommend bottled gas for cooking with for elderly or disabled persons, they are far too heavy to lift out of the car and into the house to connect up. Retired friends of us who have been in France for over 20 years now changing to all electric cooker and oven because they can no longer manage the bottles.

[markn]

Thanks for the replies.

It sounds like Butane is the most common choice to cook with - so, am I right in concluding that so long as I bought a cooker that ran on LPG it would work OK whatever the gas.

Mark

[Dick Smith]

As far as I know (certainly in our case) any cooker bought in France will be set up to work with Butane. Ours even has a little cupboard to keep the bottle in, which is fairly common.

[La Guerriere]

... and bottle connects to cooker with a regulator which you can buy virtually anywhere and a flexible hose, which needs replacing every 5 or 10 years. date of expiry is printed on the hose. This is not a CORGI job and is very simple.

Jim

 

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi,

We had a "citerne" installed when we moved out here. Takes about a ton of gas (butane iirc) which does central heating and cooking, but not hot water for various technical reasons, for a year per fill. A fill costs us about 1000 euros. More modern ones can be buried. Remember that the tanker only has a hose some 40 metres long, so you will need to site your tank accessibly. There are regulations about not parking on top of it too!!!!

Look up Com'Gaz in your local yellow pages, they're based in Périgueux, iirc, and should be prepared to fit and supply you.

 

[Alcazar]

Ours was done last year, by a company called "Vitogaz", and was done in 87.

The tank is rented, just like a little one, for a single down payment. Should you cancel the contract, or move,they remove it, or lease it to your buyer, and you get your money back.

Ours held 1146kg of gas at first fill.

Ours is buried: siting above ground was an option, but only about €100 cheaper, so we had it buried.

They came and did it while we were there one year ago, (the property is only for holidays at the mo ), and dug up one of the fosse pipes while doing it. I got the new parts, they repaired/replaced it, and I was reimbursed by cheque about 6 weeks later .

We dug out the trench for the gas line to go to the house, about 30m; it has to be about 12" wide and 18" deep. It took 3 days to dig out, (loads of rocks and buried rubbish, we found two gin traps, and half a plough!), and 2 days to back fill. You need to buy the correct semi-flexible hose, a bright yellow conduit for it, and a sort of plastic grid that comes on a roll to put about 15cm above the pipe, before back filling completely. You may find it easier to get these through your plumber: I did, the builder's merchants were reluctant to sell me stuff for gas fitting. Regs in France are even tighter than CORGI!

We also fitted a "regard", (manhole) for the connection from flexible to rigid pipework, just outside the house. Nice job, (NOT ): it's cement and weighs a lot!

At the back of the property where the gas goes in, is an emergency cut-off valve, complete in glass case with little hammer, fitted by plumber.

Our LPG supply does central heating when we need it, the hob of the range cooker, and heats hot water too. The boiler is an expensive condensing type that is NEARLY as cheap to run as an oil fired one.

For info on what LPG actually IS, I'd refer you to http://www.lpga.co.uk/LPGA.htm, where you can get info, but basically, it's a mix of butane (caravan gas, blue bottle in the UK), and propane, (cold weather caravan gas and welder's gas, orange bottle in the UK).

Any cooker, bought in any country, at least in the EC, marked for LPG, will be OK, but do be careful: some manufacturers don't offer an LPG option, and some expect you to do the (relatively simple) conversion, yourself. Sometimes the kit is free, sometimes it costs. Do your research.

Oh, and Vitogaz gave you a one year offer of a very low price on your gas if you choose them, running from the date you sign the contract to get it installed.

Alcazar

[Gyn_Paul]

Can't help feeling that - helpful though the replies are - some of them may be tiptoeing into sledgehammer/nut terretory just a tad. The original post made no mention of heating (central or otherwise), just cooking with a gas bottle.

So...

If you go to any of the shopping sheds in your nearest town, you'll find a whole range of cookers; some looking exactly like you'd find in the UK, and some quite different: as alluded to higher up there is one type which is about a metre wide with well spaced out rings, a small oven, and a cupboard for a gas bottle. It's beauty if that it's self-contained and requires no plumbing.

Then there is the standard sort of cooker with a 1/2" compression male fitting on the back, fits into a flexible hose with the female fitting. Most come with a card in with the bits and pieces in the bottom drawer on which you will find as many small brass screws ("jets") as there are burners (including grill & oven if applicable). All 3 of the cookers I have bought in France has come pre-fitted for town gas, and with the jets for bottle on the card. Easy enough to change them over.

Then there are combination cookers: 3 gas + 1 electric hobs with possible electric oven and grill - useful in a belt-and-braces sort of way.

If you only intend to cook with the gas, then a 13kg bottle will last you about 6 months on a cooker without a gas oven; about 4 months with one. As Val said , butane can be stored indoors, but propane must go outside. Butane will freeze in winter, but propane won't (yet!). Downside is that the propane one are slightly bigger, and therefore heavier.

Check with your local garage or supermarket what brands of gas they hold, then take yourself off to your local Depot Vente, or Troc (the equivalent of a second-hand shop - think Aunty Wainwright and you'll be on the right track) where you can usually pick up an empty bottle at about 1/2 - 2/3rds the price of a new bottle contract (they are usually being sold by people who have had central heating installed, or have the bliss of the arrival of the Gaz de Ville, and have lost the paperwork to get a refund on the bottle). Take the empty to the garage, and you're in business.

paul

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi Paul,

Without disagreeing technically, your mild rebuke was a little OTT, I feel, if you care to read what the OP said

> Our supply of choice would be a tank buried in the grounds.

Those of us who addressed ourselves to that were answering his question. My mention of central heating was in relation to the time a tank full might be expected to last. I'd find that relevant, myself.

[zeb]

[quote]Can't help feeling that - helpful though the replies are - some of them may be tiptoeing into sledgehammer/nut terretory just a tad. The original post made no mention of heating (central or otherwise)...[/quote]

Totally agree, Paul - getting a gas tank buried in the garden wouold be very expensive if it's just for cooking!

We have gas range type cooker (bottle is kept in kitchen unit) and the whole set-up is ideal for us but our bottles only last around two months (only two of us but loads of cooking and entertaining) and they always run out when I'm cooking for guests. So, always keep a spare (we picked our spare up at a vide grenier)!

Don't know why folks have problems cooking with a French gas oven. Just takes a little getting used to perhaps but I use the oven during the winter for nost of our cooking and never burn anything.

 

edit  - just wanted to reassure you all that I'm no domestic godess, and just because I cook loads doesn't mean that it's all edible!!

[Gyn_Paul]

[quote]Totally agree, Paul - getting a gas tank buried in the garden wouold be very expensive if it's just for cooking! We have gas range type cooker (bottle is kept in kitchen unit) and the whole set-up is...[/quote]

"....Don't know why folks have problems cooking with a French gas oven. Just takes a little getting used to perhaps but I use the oven during the winter for most of our cooking and never burn anything...."

 

Most problems stem from the European (gas) oven manufacturer's tendency to put the burners either in a double strip, or in a circle, under the bottom plate whereas historically UK manufacturers site the burner(s) either at the back or on either side. I keep forgetting this and sit something needing slow cooking virtually on the bottom and then wonder why its base is black!

The other thing is the regulo numbers don't quite match up.

I've a combi with an electric oven which is hopeless in that it doesn't get anywhere near as hot as the thermostat indicates, and it uses the grill element as well as the bottom element so 'browns' anything higher than the middle shelf - great for sponge cakes !