Underground LPG tanks

pinkmami

We're in the process of renovating a cottage which will be supplied with LPG. The location of the tank has to be moved & its new position will unfortunately be outside one of the bedroom windows & on the side of the road. I have seen a neighbours undergorund LPG tank & I was very impressed with it.

Just wandering who has done this & how much extra does the tank costs in terms of hire? I know a man with a digger who can do the excavating for a few ££ so that problems is solved.

pinkmami

Thanks for replying. The house is currently empty (inhabitable) & before we started the renovations it was tied to Shell gas. Shell's rep came out to speak to us about where the new tank was gonna be placed & drew the plans. Then the plumbers said the boiler location had to be changed so the new tank will be a few feet from its original place (but had to be removed due to an extension being built). They expect us to call them soon to have a new tank fitted as our plumber will soon be coming in to do his business so will need gas to test the system. When the old tank was in place it heated a very small 2 bed cottage with walls a meter thick, small bathroom & a livingroom & tiny kitchen. Now we have changed it to a 4/5 bed house with large lounge (but the lounge has a multifuel stove) & top notch insulation as we're in the hills (very cold here!)

I'll have to check the small print to ensure we have to go back to Shell (no mains gas for miles!) and it seems from what I see in the village most have LPG. Its ridicilously expensive.

Sily question alert here, but can I use oil to cook too?!?! I'm used to mains gas in my current ouse so the world of oil/LPG is a mystery to me!

ilikecookies

We're in the process of converting from LPG to oil - in fact with great relief I waved goodbye to the tank (and ruddy Flogas) today!

The world of off-mains energy was a mystery to me six months ago when we moved into this property but we've learnt very quickly (and very expensively) what an absolute racket LPG is for the all the reasons that jeepjunkie has already pointed out. I've posted a fair few rants about LPG so you may want to look these up for more info.

In short if I were you I wouldn't touch LPG with someone else bargepole let alone my own. Yes it's cheaper to install and yes you can get a "real flame" (whether for cooking or a fire) but my God this will cost you dear.

I was very tempted to go down the renewables route (either a biomass boiler or ground source heat pump) as oil can only get dearer plus the renewable heat initiative looks tasty but prompted for oil in the end as it's reliable (eg. not enough real world example of GSHPs for my liking yet) and hassle free (eg. can't be bothered with loading logs every day).

Oh and yes you can use oil to cook if you plump for an oil-fired cooker (eg. AGA) however you won't be able to get a "real flame" hob with oil. However, if this is really important to you then you could go the oil route for your heating and get simply get LPG cylinders for a separate gas oven. This is what I'm doing to avoid getting locked into a nasty for LPG and to use less of the blooming stuff. That said I do have a backup electric oven so if my cylinders run out I'm not stuck without a means to cook.

Hope that is of some help!