LPG Heating - Help & advice

zeeww_2

Hello all,

in the process of moving house and found one that we actually loved - in a village and not connected to the gas mains. it is a fairly new built house and the builders chose LPG for heating instead of oil (why??!!), which i think because they could bury the LPG tank in the garden as the garden is not that big, so the oil tank could be a problem.

I have always lived somewhere connected to gas mains, so this is really new to me. I was informed that the LPG tank is not owned by any of the LPG suppliers, and owned by the house owner, so he is able to switch suppliers. i wonder how would that work in terms of ensuring the tank is in good condition for LPG supplier to top up, or will I have to get LPG supplier to 'adopt' the tank and take full responsibility?

based on what i read here LPG seems very expensive, compared to other source of heating. would anyone strongly recommend LPG?? we will keep our range cooker so that could be fed off LPG cylinders.

personally i would prefer to go down the route of ground source or air source HP, but of course the former will need bore-hole digging in the garden! my current thinking is to live with the LPG heating and monitor usage for a year, and make a decision of what to do, is this a reasonable thing to do, or get rid of the LPG heating asap?

also - would the LPG heating system be a worthwhile cause to use in negotiations?

thanks, a newbie so apologies first for all these questions.

sk240

You will find the running costs would be about twice the cost of a natural gas fed system.Your best be would be a correctly sized heat pump as you suggested above, these can run even cheaper then a natural gas boiler.
I have recently installed an air-air heat pump and it has more than halved my LPG Bill
You probably don't need to get rid of the LPG system as a wet heat pump would be able to run on the same circuit (if installed properly)

zeeww_2

Thanks sk240,

LPG costing double of natural mains gas sounds horrible, and air source heat pump might be the best viable option. I like the thought of using wet system ASHP integrated with the existing LPG heating system, that will mean keeping the range cooker and also having a backup should ASHP fails (albeit an expensive backup!)

sk240 - did you keep your LPG when installing your ASHP? If so, how was the performance? I assume the ASHP was good enough to keep the house toasty and providing domestic hot water.

Cheers

sk240

Hi,Mine was an air to air system so does not do hot water etc.
My system only heats the living room, kitchen and hallway (and any room where the door is open) and the LPG is doing 2 bedrooms and the bathroom.
My LPG bill has halved from £150 a month to around £65, and the heat pump is only costing around £10-12 per month to run!
I will certainly be looking in the future to get a wet system installed too.