LPG / LPG prices (merged)

busybird

Thanks for the heads up. I have had a few occasions over the five years whereby I have had to contact them, either for increasing the price above the agreed contractual limit, or for not applying the credit for changing to an A rated boiler, and even to oppose their intention to 'ignore' the contract because of extrordinary circumstances when fuel prices rocketed. On this one I took consumer advice and threatened to sue Calor for 'loss of bargain' and was then advised that the letter they sent was actually a mistake and they would honour the contract. So our renewal should prove interesting! I have taken on board lots of advice from this forum in readiness!

LittleVermin

busybird wrote: »

<snip> I have had a few occasions over the five years whereby I have had to contact them, either for increasing the price above the agreed contractual limit, or for not applying the credit for changing to an A rated boiler, and even to oppose their intention to 'ignore' the contract because of extrordinary circumstances when fuel prices rocketed. On this one I took consumer advice and threatened to sue Calor for 'loss of bargain' and was then advised that the letter they sent was actually a mistake and they would honour the contract. <snip>

(my bold)

SO if anyone got this letter, and paid the price demanded they would they now be able to claim a refund?

Or did Calor send a second letter to all their customers with a contract similar to busybird's, saying the first letter was a mistake, and they would honour the contract. If busybird can let people know the dates, please, maybe some Calor customers might like to check their own files. It would be interesting ..and I'm sure interesting also to the Competition Commission, MPs, Mr Hendy,etc!

HateLPG

busybird wrote: »

Thanks for the heads up. I have had a few occasions over the five years whereby I have had to contact them, either for increasing the price above the agreed contractual limit, or for not applying the credit for changing to an A rated boiler, and even to oppose their intention to 'ignore' the contract because of extrordinary circumstances when fuel prices rocketed. On this one I took consumer advice and threatened to sue Calor for 'loss of bargain' and was then advised that the letter they sent was actually a mistake and they would honour the contract. So our renewal should prove interesting! I have taken on board lots of advice from this forum in readiness!

That was EXACTLY my experience! Clearly it is NO MISTAKE, but is standard Calor operating procedure! I had to beat them up several times over non-contractual price rises (see some of my other posts) and every time, got the standard "Sorry - it's extraordinay circumstances" waffle. and then after applying continued pressure and finally threats, got "Ooops sorry - we made a mistake" letter.

I think a letter to Consumer Focus/OFT/Competition commission/MPs might be in order on this one - if ENOUGH people draw their attention to this, they might realise there is a deliberate and illegal policy in operation.

LittleVermin wrote: »

I'm told that if someone wants to leave Calor they make it very difficult

As far as switching goes, my experience wasn't too bad. I went through the switch process with my new supplier (Shell). I was advised by their salesman that as the level wasn't high, to request a "minimum fill" from Calor on the next delivery. I did this, and checked the next scheduled delivery, which was still about 5-6 weeks off so that shouldn't really have been an issue, as that was about 3-4 weeks after my switch date.

I got the standard call from the Calor Customer Retention team - pleasant enough chap, and he soon realised he was wasting his time. He more or less admitted that everyone who had properly done their homework KNEW they were being fleeced, so there was not much he could say.

Oh yes, and surprise surprise (well, NOT actually), a couple of days before the tank transferred, that nice delivery chap from Calor turned up and stuck 600litres of their best LPG (their minimum fill) in the tank. How cynical is that?!

But other than that, no problems. Officially I am now with another supplier and out of the cynical money-grabbing clutches of Calor.

jason_king_3

Hi,

We are moving into a new house tomorrow (Central Scotland) and it has LPG. Apparently the tank is rented from BP and the supply is currently from Calor. I did a check of the suppliers for my postcode (6 are available: JGas,Shell,BP,ExtraFuel,Calor, and Flogas). The tank is approaching 20-30% full, so we will need a fill soon. It has a smart meter so they (calor?) will know when to come I think.

I'd appreciate any tips on getting setup. For example, should we continue to rent the tank or buy one [a new one]? Can/should I pay just for deliveries of Gas by the tank as needed or get a contract? How should I go about getting the best deal from the above suppliers. Also, since it is August we won't need much right now (just hot water) but in 3 months time (November) we'll have the heating on a lot so the price in Nov-March is probably more important longer term.

ExtraFuel's website was good as it tells you the price for the month and I appreciate their transparency - however I shouldn't judge a book by its cover!

I read some of the earlier posts and it looks like contracts can cause a lot of problems. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Jason

LittleVermin

jason_king wrote: »

Hi,

We are moving into a new house tomorrow (Central Scotland) and it has LPG. <snip>

Jason

Hi Jason,
Best wishes for your new home - and welcome to the 'LPG and Heating' forum. I wish I'd known about it years ago - and certainly by April last year when the Bulk Liquefied Petroleum Gas Market Investigation Order came into force. I managed to win a few minor battles with BP, my supplier, but only over temporarily deferred price rises, etc.

Now to try to respond to your comments and questions.
1) BP's tank but Calor fills it. Surprising! Maybe it's a local BP and Calor arrangement but normally the owner fills its tank. I'd ask the house's previous owner if you can see the paperwork - or at least see the prices per litre - and to whom they paid. And any contracts they had.
2) 6 possible suppliers. You're lucky! Try haggling. Suppliers are obliged to quote you prices for LPG over the telephone - that's a quote from http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk and then search for LPG and the first result is all about the Order. Suppliers may say 'subject to a satisfactory tank arrangement'. Fair enough - so I'd let them know the tank size (on the brass plate), age (ditto), when it was tested (ditto) .. and how much the previous owners bought p.a.. If they still won't give a quote either tell them to get lost - or quote the website! - and suggest you'll contact Consumer Direct.
3) 20-30% full. I'd get a fill soon as world spot prices go up in N. Hemisphere winter - and the majors' prices seem loosely pegged to the peaks of the winter prices. Calor, on its website, states that "We always strive to offer our customers price stability". They then go on to state "That's why we offer fair and competitive prices .."
4) Rent or buy. Nearly all users rent, I believe. There are all sorts of necessary H&S regulations - see the UK LPG website and various forum postings. The 10 yr, 20 yr, change of supplier tests cost around £300, plus parts. My above-ground tank is 19 years old, and has had 2 on-site tests: the gas engineer said it should last at least another 20 years.
5) Contract or no contract? If the tank is rented I believe a good contract - good for you and which you hold the supplier to - is best, unless you take Extra Fuel's contract for monthly prices. HateLPG seems to have got himself a good contract (see post 157).
6) Extra Fuel? I'm new with them but there's at least one person on the forum with longer experience - who recommended them to me. So far they are fine - but every supplier should seem fine at first! Cynical, maybe. There may be J Gas (Johnston's) customers on the forum too. There's plenty - too much! - about BP, Calor and Flogas. Not so much on Shell. Extra Fuel will send you a chart of their prices for last 18 months.
7) Smart meters? No experience, sorry. BP had me on 'auto top-up' - decidedly unsmart as I ran low at times and had to wait until they were next in the area, so I'd rather check my own gauge and phone at around 20-25%.

HTH.

best wishes,
John aka Little Vermin

busybird

Hi,

I will sort out my paperwork in a day or two with regards to my contract and correspondence with Calor and post anything that I think informative or helpful. The one positive I can give is the automatic tank reader (telemetry - do Calor call it?) I never have to check the tank and they read the levels on a regular basis and top up when necessary. It just plugs into my landline socket. I often just find a delivery slip through the letterbox to say they have been. This is good news for me, as would more than likely run out before I remembered to order - too many years used to mains gas me thinks!

HateLPG

jason_king wrote: »

I'd appreciate any tips on getting setup.
Jason

Welcome, Jason!

I will try not to repeat what LittleVermin said in the previous post, but here are some key pointers that I hope may help:

1. Understand the market.

Unfortunately, there is no transparency in LPG pricing, so to a great extent, all companies will offer you the highest price they think they can get away with.


2. Speak to your new neighbours.

Find out what your neighbours are paying and who they are using if they are on LPG. Because LPG is shipped in by tanker, your location does have some impact on the price. Your annual usage also has a significant impact. It will also give you a good idea of what their suppliers are like to deal with. If you know what price your neighbours are paying, it gives you some idea if the price you are being offered is a fair one. We live about 20 miles from our local depot and use about 5,000 litres a year. We were being charged just under 39ppl. At contract renewal time I shopped around and found a new deal and got 36ppl. From what I can gather, if you use much under 3000l a year, the price can jump quite considerably, but for my kind of usage, I would consider anything much above 40ppl to be WAY too expensive at the current point in time. I know there are all sorts of horror stories out there of people paying 50ppl+ for their gas - that is simply criminal.


3. Know you Rights

It is worth taking time out to read and understand your rights, and especially the Competition Commission ruling that came into force last year (2009).

In summary, whatever an LPG company may offer you or ask you to sign, they cannot legally tie you into a contract in excess of 2 years. At the time that your contract comes up for renewal, you have the right to have the tank ownership transferred from your outgoing supplier to your incoming supplier. Although it may not sound it, this is quite a big deal!

Before April last year, if you wanted to change supplier, your outgoing supplier could (and did) say "That's my tank, thank you very much. I'm not having someone else put their gas in it. I'm going to come and take my tank away. And you are going to pay me several hundreds of your best pounds for the privilege." As you can imagine, that basically meant a new supplier had to offer a fantastically good long-term deal to make it even worth thinking about switching. Now, if you want to switch supplier, you simply fill in an instruction (not dissimilar in complexity to a direct debit form - i.e. dead short and simple) giving your new supplier authority to request the transfer of the tank from your old supplier. The state and age of the tank should have no impact - what is happening behind the scenes is that your new supplier is buying the tank from your old supplier, using a costing formula laid down by the Competition Commission.

You will also notice that most modern contracts have an uplift clause with some pretty scary figures in for tank removal. In the case of the current Calor contract, the charges stated are £230 + vat for standard tanks or £1,100 + vat for underground tanks, both linked to RPI. I actually think this latter is probably an unfair contract term as it does NOT reflect the cost and the customer still has to pay the cost of any groundworks and other remedial work - but that's another story. In general, you can probably ignore that term. It only has any relevance if you are terminating your LPG supply entirely and have no further use for the tank but I think, purely as a scare tactic, some companies still tend to throw around the phrase "uplift charges" if you suggest moving to another supplier!


4. Read any contracts carefully BEFORE you sign

Ask all the companies that you are considering to send you a full copy of their contract for you to review before you sign anything (You will probably need a magnifying glass handy!). It's NOT just about the headline price - some of the contracts out there differ wildly. For example, I have seen some with NO reference to any potential price rises. Unless, like ExtraFuel, they are offering you a variable "best spot price", I personally would avoid those. To illustrate this point, of two companies whose contracts I have seen recently, Calor's contract states that if they increase the price by more than 3.5ppl in any THREE month period, then effectively you are free to move; Shell, on the other hand will effectively release you from the contract if they increase the price by more than 3ppl in any SIX month period. As you are going to be stuck with the company for two years, this difference, in my opinion, is pretty darned significant! Obviously, you should compare and contrast the entire contract, but the Charges and Payment section is a good place to start!


5. How are deliveries scheduled?

As far as I know, Calor are the only people offering tank telemetry on any kind of wide scale. Apparently, there are two types - one type communicates via satellite, and I have heard that this can be unreliable at times. The other uses a radio link to a box attached to your telephone. I have had this system and I never had any issues with missed or late deliveries.

The more common method (used by just about all the other companies) is to make predictive deliveries, based on past usage patterns, and in all cases they recommend that you also check the tank readings manually on a regular basis and advise them if your level is less than a certain amount (typically about 35%) so that they can schedule in a delivery.

One thing to note is that Calor for certain, and probably all the companies "reserve the right" to make an additional charge if you request a delivery outside of your normal pattern. I did this once with Calor (during the harsh weather last winter) and they did NOT apply this charge, but nonetheless, Caveat Emptor!


6. Company Reputation

Read around and talk to people! To distil what I have heard/read here and elsewhere, Calor and Flogas seem to be the biggest sharks, price wise (although I think many of the suppliers, especially the big four are taking advantage of the opacity of the market in respect of pricing). I have to say, that other than my dissatisfaction with Calor over their pricing/sales strategies, they managed to deliver OK (no pun intended) in all other respects.

ExtraFuel seem to be getting a bit of a good reputation amongst some of the users on this site, but beware, as the nature of their deal means that the price could fluctuate wildly.

I have heard a few negative comments in respect of BP, but to be honest, as they seem to be the minority supplier amongst the big four, it would only take one or two disgruntled users to distort that picture.

As far as the other of the big four (Shell) goes, I have heard no negative comments and one or two positive ones. At the moment, Shell seem keen to generate new business and are offering a competitive price. I guess I will find out soon enough what they are like to deal with as I've just signed a new contract with them, but if the salesman was a true reflection of the company (and they often are) I would expect them to play the contract with a somewhat straighter bat than Calor did in my experience (I always felt that I'd just gone several rounds with a used-car salesman after meeting any of the Calor Reps!)

Just my 2p-worth, but hope it helps

jason_king_3

Hi,

Thanks for your messages regarding moving in for myself (LPG "first timer":).

We were left some details by the previous owners. I now know that the tank/contract was with BP both for rental and supply.

It is a 1400L tank with a transmitter on the top. The test date is 1992 - so I guess it will require an inspection next year.

BP customer services seemed OK - I'm allowed 1 delivery outwith contact which I will go for if we run much lower. A quick mention that I'm shopping around before signing a contact gave a significant saving on the quoted ppl. Probably a good time to speak to the neighbours and make some more calls.

Thanks
Jason

danlojo

Not sure whether it helps anyone but we have just moved into a LPG house and I did the trawling round companies and the best I could barter was with Calor at 37.4ppl (guaranteed for 6 months) with £50 free gas this year and £50 free gas next year.

A neighbour down the road have Calor and he pays 39.4ppl.

It's a bit of a minefield for us but hopefully I havent paid over the odds too much. Just had the tank filled completely which should get us through the winter months and will top up again just before the 6 months price may/will rise.

It's great reading this thread and hope the government stop these high LPG prices.

We are in the N Lincs area.

meagan

I am at present getting price quotes and shell seem to be coming out the best at 37.5 for 6mths and
then could only increase by 3p .they told me that the price cannot exceed a 9p price rise during the 2 yr contract. would anyone with shell like to share with me their opinion and experiences