Alternatives to LPG Please

kesira

I am hoping someone could provide a cheaper alternative to LPG bottled gas for me please. To give some details.

3 bed detached house.
Double glazed (5 years old)
Loft fully insulated (2 years ago)
Cavity walls insulated.
Induction hob & electric oven.
Fire - coal, wood, will burn anything.
Central heating/hot water LPG Baxi combi boiler.

We are using over the winter periods 2 LPG bottles per week at an average cost of £70 per bottle (yes we shop around). This works out at around £560 per MONTH. We keep radiators off in rooms that are not in use, doors closed, etc. The heating is not on constantly, opting for an hour in the morning and 2 in the afternoon (work from home) and 3 in the evening, on extremely cold days this is increased. It has reached the point with costs that on many occasions we will simply be cold rather than use the heating as it is so expensive. We use the open fire in the living room and have purchased electric portable heaters for the office and bedroom, so we have extra costs for the electric used and coal/wood (Worked it out at around £10 a day to heat the livingroom with the open fire but it does make it snuggly warm). We simply can't afford to keep the house warm at those prices. Summer is fine, as we are only using the LPG for hot water in those months but even taking that into account the costs are astronomical.

Can anyone recommend a cheaper option that will not cost us a fortune to implement, we really can't afford to keep doing this and I really don' want to face another winter of running out of gas or shivering in my coat indoors. Any help or advice welcomed.

albyota

Hi, Kesira, your options are getting a tank installed (ground based or underground if land suits) and buying bulk LPG, similar running costs though, or changing over to oil, which is simply jumping from the frying pan into the fire, or biomass wood pellet boiler, or air or ground source heat pump, get quotes from at least three companies for all options, there are some grants available for biomass, and heat pumps.

malc_b

I would suggest, look at a larger LPG tank which might be the cheapest capital outlay. Bulk LPG is cheaper I think. Next comes oil, cheaper than LPG but you would need a new boiler and an oil tank. Both of those would work with existing radiators.

Heat pump could be looked at but they work best with underfloor heating or air as these are lower temperature than radiators. When really cold you may be almost 1:1 i.e. full price electric.

E7 is worth a look. It's cheaper than oil and you could add it to your existing system so run E7 + LPG using E7 to give base heat and LPG to top it up.

Also, you need to consider what you're willing to live with. I had a coal room heater for 20yrs and even with glass front it is still messy to live with. Fine coal dust escapes when you fill and it has to be raked and the ashes emptied twice a day. It's not a boiler you just turn on and forget. Same for wood, no coal dust but ashes and more refills. Personally I prefer the less mess.

Mister_G

I suggest you look at David.T2's post #1980 under the Bulk LPG sticky at the top of this forum. He gives a comparision between bottled and bulk LPG price per litre.

You should be looking for a bulk price of 42 to 46ppl, which would be considerably cheaper that the 78ppl that you are paying for your bottles.

There are also some good introductory offers from both Calor and Avanti, which you could benefit from.

You will of course need a suitable location for the tank.

crash_ndie

hi id look in to high temp air source personally you can get a grant towards it and you get the rhi tariff too. Based on your figures thats over 3k for 6 months of winter use ! ! try the calculator out on dakin co uk select the domestic tab... i think you may be supprised theres no LPG drop down but it will give you a ruff cost to heat your house for the year on there pump.. i would recommend these to any one the 1st install out lay may be high but for what your paying now you will soon recoup that with your fuel cost alone

matelodave

If you are tempted by a heat-pump, then have a llok at the Daikin website. They have a simulator which, given some basic info will estimate what sort of system would work for you and estimate some costs HOWEVER - be aware that you need to do some heat loss calculations yourself to understand the heating and usage requirements of your household. You also need to know what size radiators you've got and what their output is - especially at the temperatures that a heat pump operates at - the lower the system water temperature the more efficient a heat pump is.

We are heating a 1986 140sq/m detached 3-bedroom bungalow located in an exposed area of the Cambridgeshire fens. It has 11 year old double glazing, 300mm of loft insulation and the walls are cavity filled (but I dont know how well). The floor is a non-insulated suspended ventilated wooden floor over which we have an overlay floor heating system (PolyPipe Overlay) We have an induction hob, use a dishwasher, washing machine, tumbledryer and about 50% of our lighting is LED. We are at home all day so the heating is on virtually all the time and the heatpump provides our hot water as well. We have no other form of heating.

Last year we used exactly 8259kw of electricity at 10p a unit - we dont use economy 7 as we are heating the house all day. This year we are paying about 10.7p so our costs will increase a bit. Also this winter has been substantially colder and lasted longer than last year so in January we actually used 1500kw which is more than we've ever used since we've had the heatpump (2.5 years = 3 winters) - I estimate we'll use about 500kw (£53) more than last year. Now it's warmed up a bit the consumption has plummeted to about 20kw/day and should go down to about 10kw a day between May and September.

If you do decide to investigate a heatpump - dont rely on the RHi in your calculations it will be a bonus if it happens (of which I have doubts). You should be able to get some help up front and if you check you should only have to pay 5% VAT. Have a look at the Energy Savings Trust website

If you want to see a graph of our monthly electricity usage since we've had the heatpump - let me know

matelodave

As a addition to above - as we average about 10-11kw/day in the summer our electricity consumption baseline would be about 3500-4000kw (including hot water) so it looks as though heating is using about 5000kw a year at whatever electricity rate you can get - in our case about 10.7p/unit (averaging out the standing charge

dullnote

Hi Kesira I used to use LPG bulk tank, cost 45p/l installed a ASHP last sep and heating cost down by around 50% similar cost to matelodave. We have a well insulated house and pump on all day.

Check you lifestyle before going down th ASHP route, it is not like a boiler, it will not heat the house up from cold in a hour or so like a boiler, water temp to our underfloor heating only 35 degrees.

Before changing any heating insulate your house as much as possible then squeeze some more in, after that consider heating