Gas or Oil - HELP

gouldenb

Hello, I've just bought an old farmhouse in Devon which currently has no central heating.

There is no gas connection or oil tank and I'm not sure what to fit.

It has a guest cottage as well so I'll be running two boilers, cookers and central heating off the supply.

Can anyone suggest which would be cheaper to install and run - gas cylinders or an oil tank?

Many thanks
Beng

oldtractor

I'd go for wood pellets. Oil and LPG is horrendously expensive and surely can only get worse?

G_M

Impossible to say. You need to get some quotes. Not much price difference between a gas/oil boiler, but...

so find out how much installing a gas supply would be..
or do you mean LPG ? Ouch! No!!!!
and get some quotes for an oil tank - bunded or non-bunded? Plastic or steel? Get the biggest you can afford though so you're not constantly having small deliveries.

LittleVermin

gouldenb wrote: »

Hello <snip>

Can anyone suggest which would be cheaper to install and run - gas cylinders or an oil tank?

...

Hi Beng,

Welcome to MSE forums.

IF you can, get mains gas - but the connection will probably be prohibitive. But there have been one or two surprisingly low prices mentioned on MSE. IF you think you may go for oil I'd ask around (local parish council even!) to see if there's a buying consortium (e.g. http://www.yobco.co.uk/ or http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=4424859&postcount=70 ). IF you are tempted by LPG, the cost per litre of bulk LPG (i.e. from a tank) is less than cylinders. You can own your own tank (probably about £1500 plus groundworks) but most rent - for a 2 yr exclusive contract - from a LPG supplier. You can find most of the firms which will supply you by putting your postcode in http://www.uklpg.org/supplier-search/ I'd also contact Mole Valley Farmers who bulk buy for their members (basic membership - Mole Valley Plus - is £10 p.a., I believe) in the SW. A few people have organised buying consortia (e.g. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=38832310&postcount=369) Calor has a couple of deals on at present (the eligibility for their £500 off is here: http://www.calor.co.uk/switching/switching-fuels/switching-to-lpg/terms-and-conditions/) Lots of info on the Bulk LPG thread. Many LPG users would strongly suggest you do NOT sign up with Flogas!

I got bulk LPG installed in 1991 - old farmhouse too. I doubt if I'd go the same route today.

Good luck!

gouldenb

Thanks Beng, that's really helpful.

Coming from this from a slightly clueless position, lived in London all my life so this stuff comes on tap, it seems that LPG is cheaper to install. Oil working out around the best part of 5k once it's installed, filled and all pipe work done. And LPG more like 4k.

You say you wouldn't go down the LPG route again - what problems have you had?

Many thanks for you advice, this is all a learning curve for me!

Ringing calor to see if my swap from London to rural qualifies for the £500 offer.

Thanks
BG

LittleVermin

gouldenb wrote: »

You say you wouldn't go down the LPG route again - what problems have you had?

Many thanks for you advice, this is all a learning curve for me!

Ringing calor to see if my swap from London to rural qualifies for the £500 offer.

Thanks
BG

MSE helps make the learning curve not quite so steep! People on MSE helped me a lot when I thought about changing my supplier from BP, who (in typical LPG supplier behaviour) was fleecing me. And therein lies the answer to your question! Calor gives good service - but has frequent amnesia about the maximum price rise terms in its contracts. Someone on the Bulk LPG went through their bills and got nearly £1000 back but we believe most people don't check so pay more than is in their contracts. Flogas has a dreadful reputation with MSE posters.

The majors - Calor, Flogas, BP and Shell - try to keep stable prices - and these prices exhibit the ratchet effect i.e. they go up when the wholesale price of LPG goes up ... but don't come down when it falls. In ~20 years with BP the price only dropped once! Independent suppliers are more flexible - and one (Extra Fuel) posts a monthly price (though that went pear-shaped in March as the wholesale price went crazy).

If you own your own tank you can buy from whoever you like - but you'll need a LPG gas engineer to do tests, etc. There's a pleasant, reliable one at St Agnes - Dave Wilsdon - I don't know how far he goes, but he might be able to recommend a reliable engineer in your part of Devon. He worked for Calor for many years before going independent. He now works for whoever - BP, Extra Fuel, camp and caravan sites, mobile home estates, ...

If your new place has nightstore, or a backboiler, Calor will probably cough up the £500.

But if I was in your shoes I'd look seriously at GSHP, wood pellet boilers, etc., as well. People seemed to have problems with ASHP in the very cold weather we had earlier this year - and the previous year. At least the ground keeps a fairly constant temperature for GSHP to extract heat from!

gouldenb

Thanks for that. My main concern with this is cost as we're doing a lot of work on the house so money is tight.

It seems that LPG is probably the cheapest option. I did look at GSHP but I think given that my wife wants a gas hob fitting, both gas and GSHP will really put the budget up.

That's all given me lots to think about, many thanks.

LittleVermin

Hi Beng,

You'll probably find you'll lose 'the electric' in Devon more than you were accustomed to in London. So your central heating won't work. And in both last winters there was a national shortage of LPG plus delivery problems with tankers on icy roads so some people's tanks became empty*. So I'd have a back-up heater. Many of us have wood-burners. Wood can be very pricey (all these people getting wood-burners!) and toe-rags will pass off green wood as seasoned. But it should not be too hard to get wood for free - or at least cheaply - though you'll probably need to saw it up. I used to break up thrown away pallets. Wood-burners need to be fitted carefully - and in line with regs: look up posts by crphillips for good makes, and fitting info. Too many cowboys. For LPG stuff I suggest you read posts by HateLPG - stacks of good advice on contracts, etc.

Cheers!

*LPG suppliers have different policies on top-ups. Some will top up if there's a tanker in the area. Most ask users to re-order at some given % - e.g. 20% (I think that's Calor's figure) or 25% .. and don't take kindly to people crying 'wolf'. Some firms use telemetry - though I'd still check your tank! There was a lot of mis-information about top-ups on the Bulk LPG forum last month: ignore it. And more back in ?January: ditto! I'll send you a pm on this.

bernithebiker

For goodness sake, do NOT put in LPG.

You cannot just look at the figures for today's installation cost.

Have you considered the future price of LPG?

Even using today's LPG prices, your £1000 installation saving will be very quickly eaten up.

We have just ripped out a perfectly good LPG boiler, to install an ASHP as our LPG supplier was using us as it's pension fund (frequent, large, unjustified price increases).

My choice would be in this order; 1. Wood, 2. Heat pump, 3. Basic electric, 4. Oil, 5. LPG

(Assuming natgas is not available).

lovesgshp

gouldenb wrote: »

Thanks for that. My main concern with this is cost as we're doing a lot of work on the house so money is tight.

It seems that LPG is probably the cheapest option. I did look at GSHP but I think given that my wife wants a gas hob fitting, both gas and GSHP will really put the budget up.

That's all given me lots to think about, many thanks.

We have a gas hob and GSHP. 2 x 47Kg bottles last on average a year, with one in use and second as back-up, when other empties!!

ilikecookies

bernithebiker wrote: »

For goodness sake, do NOT put in LPG.

I'll second that!

In fact I'm in the process of converting to oil. Trust me it will be cheaper for you to heat the house by burning £10 notes than going down the LPG route.

I'm going down the oil route but if circumstances were different I'd probably look at a heat pump or biomass boiler.

Some of the key gotcha's of LPG include:

1) 2-year fixed price contracts. They will sucker you in with what seems like a good rate (which right now is probably around the 40ppl) but expect price increases every month in the winter period to claw this back and no decreases in the summer. And expect these increases to be between 5-10% a time and there is nothing you can do about it if you want to be warm! My price increased 60% between October 2010 and January 2011 alone. Funnily enough I've seen no reductions have been proposed since the weather got warmer.

2) Constant stress with deliveries in the winter. The maximum size LPG tank you can have installed is 2200 litres. In reality the tank can only be filled to 85% of capacity so that's really about 1900 litres. Factor on top of this that LPG has a lower energy content than oil this means that potentially you'll be filling up more often in the winter than with oil where you can pick much larger tanks (eg. 2500l, 5000l and even bigger). The result is that you will find it harder to ride out the winter price increases and the bad weather.

3) Tank rental with LPG can be anything between £50 and £120/year depending on how greedy your LPG supplier is. They claim this covers inspections, maintenance etc but no-one has ever visited my tank to do this!

The one saving grace of LPG is that you can have a natural flame but boy do you pay for this privilege! If the Mrs must have it then I'd suggest running the hob off LPG bottles which will be much cheaper than having a whole LPG system!