Lpg range?

bbcobmike

For a variety of reason am on the point of switching from oil to bulk LPG

Current oil fired boiler is at it's life end and the oil fired AGA needs servicing every 2 or 3 months to clear carboned up feed pipe to the burner

It seems that the running costs of bulk LPG and oil is about the same. Avanti quote 41p/litre for 6 months and a guaranteed cap of 5p increase for the year.

Calor have a deal which include a free boiler if switching from oil.

Installation is very cheap (£200 above ground £500 underground) as is annual rental and with the latest changes to the law switching suppliers is now easy as the new supplier has to take over the previous company's tank etc.

I am looking at alternatives to AGA gas fired ranges and have come across Heritage and wondered if anyone has experience of them good or bad?

dullnote

I would stay well clear of LPGcost a fortune to run

Dull note

ilikecookies

dullnote wrote: »

I would stay well clear of LPGcost a fortune to run

Dull note

As someone who switched from LPG to oil (and all the cost that involved!) my first thought was the same.

The upfront costs of installing LPG are indeed cheaper and the big companies will often dangle a juicy price per litre but in the long run the pain will come from of being locked into a contract and the sharp price of the big suppliers.

I consider myself pretty savvy with contracts, money-saving etc but Flogas really gave me a good run for my money - never has a company infuriated me so much! The folks I know with the others (Calor, BP, Avanti) don't have much better things to say about them though to be fair the independents do seem to be better.

Do remember that per litre LPG needs to be 30% cheaper than the price of oil as it has a lower energy content per litre and you need to factor in the rental costs as an additional cost. According to the Notts Energy Partnership website oil is still (admittedly marginally) cheaper than LPG on a like-for-like basis.

You do say that there are other reasons for switching and so it may be the right thing for you but I don't know of many folks who have switched from oil to LPG so that might tell you something!

gterr

I can't speak for LPG central heating, but we did have an LPG range cooker for many years. This was, I think, a Diplomat /Hygena model (from MFI) with 7 rings including wok burner, two ovens and a grill. It was very very cheap to run - we just had 47kg bottles. It replaced our much-loved solid fuel AGA which was costing too much to run and lacked adequate control. The new owners of the house still have it, so that means it's been going for at least 14 years with no problems.

ilikecookies

@gterr - question for you if you'd be so kind.

The back story is when we switched from LPG to oil we decommissioned our LPG Rayburn which acted as our boiler and a cooker. I do miss the cooker component of the Rayburn if not the bills the boiler side generated (it was hideously inefficient). I did think about replumbing it to act as a cooker only which is technically possible but I couldn't find an engineer who would want to do it. Also as I understand it with a Rayburn/AGA-type cooker it needs to be "on" 24/7 and I think it will guzzle at least 20 litres a week just ticking over which just isn't cost-effective.

As such I do like the idea of a separate LPG range to have proper gas rinks. Out of interest how many 47KG bottles did you get through in an average year?

bbcobmike

Just had the Calor quote for LPG tank installation as "Free" with me doing the excavation only (almost free). Then 44p/l for the gas.

Including the differences of calorific values my 3000 litres of oil at 63p will become 4000 litres of lpg at 44p....so much the same running costs.

Gasflo have provided a revised quote which is effectively £100 for the underground installation, a fixed price of 44p for 12 months and annual rental/maintenance £60

Just waiting for Avanti now.

The main reason for a change from oil is the frequency of decoking the AGA burner, also not being able to switch the thing off at night and wasted heating in the summer. The Heritage LPG range will be up to temeperature in 30mins from idle and is fully controllable as to when you need the heat. So there has to be a substantial saving there.

Also our current oil boiler is now 15 years old so might as well change it for a grade "A" boiler now.

ilikecookies

@ bbcobmike - we had a similar dilemma to yourself so thought it might be useful if I shared our experience in full.

When we bought our house it came with a 15-year old LPG Rayburn which was horrendously inefficient: I'm told it was around 50-60% efficient vs. 90-97% for a new boiler. It also had to be left on 24/7 which was rather wasteful to say the least! I'm told it would easily use 30-40 litres per week just ticking over! The final nail in the coffin was that it was also not powerful enough to heat the house either! As a 2-oven cooker though it was wonderful and it did keep the kitchen (if not the rest of the house) nice and warm!

Added into the mix after just 6 months we realised the LPG market was not for us. Our price per litre increased from 39 ppl to 57 ppl (both ex. VAT) within just 6 months! This was during the very cold winter of 2010 and the price increases were imposed with immediate effect and with no consultation. If I didn't like it I could switch but I knew other suppliers were raising their prices too and so I didn't see the point switching at that time. Admittedly I think the caps are better imposed/respected by the LPG suppliers now than just 2 years ago. Another issue was that our tank was just 1000 litres and in reality LPG tanks can only hold 85% of their capacity (as the gas needs room to expand) so we could only actually get 800-850 litres in it. With an inefficient boiler we burn through this very quickly which meant fill-ups every month. As price increased every month too this was a real !!!!!!! I think I could have upgraded for free to a 2000 litre tank (so 1700 litres capacity).

The standing charge also annoyed me as never once did the driver or anyone else do any check to the tank so what exactly was I paying for!

So I thought sod this and looked at the option of converting to oil. I particularly liked the idea of having a large tank (2500 litres) which I could fill up gradually over the summer when oil prices tend to dip. Then I could ride out the winter price increases which catch some folks off guard when the prices shoot up to 65-75 ppl mark.

As we needed a new boiler the only real heartache involved in switching to oil was that we needed to buy an oil tank and have a concrete bed made for it (though I had a friend do the bed fairly cheap in the end). I've heard some folks say that oil boilers need to be serviced each year whilst LPG ones do not so this is also something to factor but in all honesty I think all boilers should be serviced once a year so I'm not sure I agree with this.

Maybe my LPG experience was tainted by Flogas but I don't see a lot of love on these forums for any of the major suppliers. They will all break their caps when it suits them and yes you can switch but chances are prices will have raised elsewhere so you're always chasing your tail. I like the fact I can ring round to get quotes for my oil (or use the local syndicate when it suits me). I didn't like being tied to one supplier with LPG.

Couple of things to consider I suppose:

1) If you have an oil tank already (?) then at least there is no tank to purchase meaning you only need to buy a new boiler which you need to do by the sounds of it anyway.

2) RE the prices you quote are these both with VAT? I ask as this year on average I paid 56.7 ppl for my oil (mainly through a syndicate). Obviously if you can get oil cheaper than 63 ppl too then the equation starts to change.

3) I do miss the cooker component of the LPG Rayburn. I am toying with getting a dedicated LPG range and just running this off cylinders. As such you can have the best of both worlds - cheaper heating on oil but the convenience of an LPG hob/cooker.

I'm sure you've looked into all the above and the decision to switch is right for you but I just wanted to share our ride with LPG as it was SO painful!

nande2000

Don't do it. Sounds like the most cost effective option for you is to have a modern oil boiler installed. LPG suppliers are a bunch of charlatans.

What about getting your aga converted to a pressurejet oil burner ? There are companies out there that can recondition/install new burners to an old Aga.
Or you could get a modern oil boiler and just fill the Aga boiler with silica sand and use it as a room heater/cooker.

Alternatively look at renewables (wood pellet, Heat pump).