Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

confusedgranma

Thank you for taking the time to reply Littlevermin. I don't even know who the landlord is! Everything is going through the estate agents and I have to go in to take references etc before signing a lease but won't be doing that until I know about the LPG. There is no point moving out of a home that's expensive to heat into one that costs TWICE as much :eek: !It's a lovely house but I'm starting to think it's not the one for me after all. .
I will see if I can get the landlords info and contact him to find out all I can before I make the final decision.

LittleVermin

confusedgranma wrote: »

<snip> It's a lovely house but I'm starting to think it's not the one for me after all. <snip>

Please don't be put off! But I think all of us on the forum would recommend you go in with eyes wide open (as you are trying to!). You are NOT, it seems, getting locked into a house with LPG as you are renting, not buying. Lots of us out in the sticks have lived with LPG for years - since 1991 in my case! I wouldn't go for LPG today but in 1991 the choice was basically oil or LPG (we had solid fuel which my wife wanted to get shot of). Does the house have a multi-fuel stove as well? If you can get logs cheap that's a second form of heating many of us have.

Heating costs depend so much on how you use the system, as well as the insulation, so any figure the estate agent gives needs to be treated with caution. [How many people lived in the house? Children? Someone home all day? .. etc .. all affect the cost. OK, teaching confusedgranma to suck eggs, I realise.]

GrandadRob

ConfusedGrandma...............This has me confused too. What is the status with renting and LPG contracts. Surely when you take over a property, you must be able to find out any contracts which have been entered into, which directly affect you. I can understand that you may not be able to do anything about them, but the Estate Agent must be able to get the details from the Landlord.....I wouldn't sign any lease until you have sight of the actual details, otherwise it's a blank cheque. The LPG market is not a nice place for the uninformed.

LittleVermin

In the "Cheaper Oil for Fuel?" thread UnderPressure has just posted this interesting link to a press release from Carmarthenshire CC:

http://www.carmarthenshire.gov.uk/English/news/Pages/GBOils.aspx

Yes, the court case was about heating oil customers being overcharged, but the offending company, GB Oils, is owned by DCC, which also owns Flogas.

Here's a post from January with a list of DCC companies. (Please add your thanks to ukoilman for a really useful post!)

Flogas is currently the second largest domestic bulk LPG supplier in the UK (after Calor). Possibly it will grow by acquiring smaller companies (maybe even Shell 's and/or BP's LPG division as well as the independents): it recently came to an 'arrangement' with Countrywide (see here).

Here's a quote from the press release:

Many of the customers who complained were charged approximately 15p/litre more than they had been quoted or than they had expected to pay and said that if they had known the actual price that would be charged they would not have bought the oil from G B Oil and would have shopped around with competitors selling the same product for much lower prices at that time.

The case was brought by Carmarthen's Trading Standards. Good for them!

..

The_Hornet

Just a heads up on the results of a phone round today for Herefordshire:
Countrywide - 43p
Callow - 43p
Lister - 45p
Shell - 44.4p
Calor 45.9p

I am currently out of contract with Countrywide, all the others are for a 2year contract. The Countrywide price is the same as I paid in March.

HateLPG

The_Hornet wrote: »

Just a heads up on the results of a phone round today for Herefordshire:
Countrywide - 43p
Callow - 43p
Lister - 45p
Shell - 44.4p
Calor 45.9p

Interesting!

Looks like maybe prices are dropping back a notch or two. Not much, but something is better than nothing, I guess. Long may it last :-)

Don't forget to check the small print on any contract offered, especially with respect to any options to terminate the contract in the event of any significant price increases.

(Still scandalous pricing, though, in the overall scale of things!)

ponymad_3

I was with Flogas and moved very successfully to a local supplier. when I moved, I had to sign an agreement for 2 yrs, they told me that the tank would need to be replaced, said their company policy was around 15yrs. Anyway they have just changed and they were excellent, replaced what I thought was an illegal fence around the tank without a problem. I still get a good deal from them . Only have top ups when I want can pay for as little as 500l
....TBH not sure what I m paying right now but I will be finding out today and posting to help anyone out there.
BTW live in N Yorkshire and the supplier is BATA

danlojo

The_Hornet wrote: »

Just a heads up on the results of a phone round today for Herefordshire:
Countrywide - 43p
Callow - 43p
Lister - 45p
Shell - 44.4p
Calor 45.9p

Spoke with Calor today and they stated 55.4ppl :eek: I'm still in a year contract with them.

I have managed to get it down to 51.4ppl as my contract stated no more than 3.5ppl per quarter for price rise as my initial cost was 37.4ppl.

Why are the prices so different throughout the country. I'm on the Lincolnshire/Yorkshire border

HateLPG

danlojo wrote: »

Why are the prices so different throughout the country. I'm on the Lincolnshire/Yorkshire border

Hi Danlojo,

As a well-known Meerkat might say: "Simples";

Or put another way, because they can. If you read this thread and others (or if you have seen the "Don't Get Done, Get Dom" programme on Flogas operations in Winkleigh, Devon) you will realise that the only thing governing the price you pay is what your supplier thinks they can get away with charging you. Nothing more deep or complicated than that! There are some geographic influences on price, but these pale into insignificance when compared to pure supplier greed.

Some of us (perhaps typified by readers of this forum) realise that something is not quite right, read the small print and challenge the prices. The majority (and I would speculate a very large majority - my gut-feel is perhaps 90-95%) just accept what the suppliers tell them and don't realise that they do have some (albeit limited) bargaining power.

Congratulations on being one of the "smart minority": it pays :j

For what it's worth, I would say 55.4ppl is too high given current wholesale prices. 51.4ppl is probably at about the high end of a fair price, but that would depend on your annual usage. I would say it's still a bit too high if you're using 5000l or more a year. Maybe David.T could advise on the current fair price if he's still lurking around these parts.

The_Hornet

Just to clarify the figures I got, they are all based on 3000l a year and were the first figures quoted by the suppliers without any effort by me to negotiate them. As I stated I am out of contract with Countrywide and the last couple of fills I've had from them were:
March 2011 - 43p
December 2010 - 42.7p