How long does a gas cylinder last for a Pakistani household?
Divide the cylinder weight in grams by 190 to get total burner hours, then divide by your daily burner hours. An 11.8 kg cylinder holds about 62 burner hours. A household running two burners for two hours a day gets roughly 15 days from it.
Cylinder life is arithmetic, not guesswork. Once you know your own cooking hours you can predict a refill date to within a couple of days.
What are the numbers this is built on?
- 1 kg of LPG contains about 46.1 MJ of energy.
- A typical stove burner runs at around 7 MJ per hour. Two burners together is about 14 MJ/hr, or roughly 0.30 kg/hr.
- A standard single burner therefore uses about 190 grams per hour.
Those figures are typical values, not guarantees. Burner size, flame setting, pot size and weather all move them.
What is the formula?
Cooking hours in a cylinder equals the cylinder weight in grams divided by 190.
Then divide that by your daily burner hours — the number of burners you use multiplied by the hours you run them.
A worked example
Take an 11.8 kg cylinder in a household that runs two burners for two hours a day.
- 11.8 kg is 11,800 grams.
- 11,800 ÷ 190 = about 62 burner hours.
- Two burners for two hours is 4 burner hours a day.
- 62 ÷ 4 = about 15 days.
How long by household size?
These are estimates using the 190 g/hour figure above.
| Household | Burner hours a day | 11.8 kg | 15 kg | 45.4 kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| One or two people, light cooking | 2 | 31 days | 39 days | 119 days |
| Family of four, normal cooking | 4 | 15 days | 19 days | 59 days |
| Large family, heavy cooking | 7 | 8 days | 11 days | 34 days |
| Small tea stall | 14 | 4 days | 5 days | 17 days |
Why does my cylinder not last as long in winter?
Cold slows vaporisation inside the cylinder and food takes longer to heat, so burners run longer for the same meal. Expect a shorter cylinder life in January than in June for identical cooking.
Work out your own
The calculator does the arithmetic above with your numbers, and gives an estimated refill date you can share.
Common questions
How many hours does an 11.8 kg cylinder last?
About 62 burner hours, using the standard figure of 190 grams per burner hour. A household running two burners for two hours a day gets roughly 15 days from it.
How much gas does one burner use per hour?
A standard single burner uses roughly 190 grams of LPG per hour, which is about 7 MJ. Two burners together come to about 0.30 kg per hour.
How much energy is in 1 kg of LPG?
About 46.1 MJ. That is the figure behind the consumption arithmetic, and it is why LPG gives more cooking heat per kilogram than most alternatives.
Why does a cylinder last fewer days in winter?
Cold slows vaporisation inside the cylinder and food takes longer to heat, so burners run longer for the same meal. The same household can see a noticeably shorter cylinder life in January.
Sargodha Gas has supplied LPG cylinders in Sargodha since 2005. Contact us