oil or lpg

fishybusiness

LPG is typically 8-12% more than oil

Depends how you buy it.

For ex, a 47kg bottle, approx 95 litres is 65 pounds.

About 68p per litre

Yet here

http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison

it is 45p a litre

So buying in bulk, which many people do, gives the close comparison to oil. But it is not an absolute, many people have two 47kg LPG bottles hooked up at the back of their house. Much more expensive than oil to run.

Also, consider the energy contained in 1 litre of LPG and oil.

Oil 9.8 kWh per litre

LPG 6.66 kWh per litre

Source: http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison

Thus comparable prices per litre do not equal comparable running, and LPG in real terms is only producing 0.67 of the heat of that produced by the same amount of oil.

Add your 10 to 12% cost premium of LPG as stated plus tank rental and the 51% more expensive LPG is pretty close

AdrianC

fishybusiness wrote: »

Depends how you buy it.

For ex, a 47kg bottle, approx 95 litres is 65 pounds.

About 68p per litre

Yet here

http://www.nottenergy.com/energy_cost_comparison

it is 45p a litre

So buying in bulk, which many people do, gives the close comparison to oil. But it is not an absolute, many people have two 47kg LPG bottles hooked up at the back of their house. Much more expensive than oil to run.

Yeh, that's the key - you've got to compare apples with apples. If you're comparing a bulk tank of oil, you've gotta compare a bulk tank of LPG, not small expensive cylinders. Don't even ask about the price of Camping Gaz, which is the same thing in an even smaller package...

Add your 10 to 12% cost premium of LPG as stated plus tank rental and the 51% more expensive LPG is pretty close

Not sure about that. I forget the exact price per day for the tank rental, but it's about 10-15p, and we're balancing out nicely on a £60pcm dd*. So that's only 5-7.5% of the monthly price. For somebody with a higher usage, that'll drop. Add that to 10-12%, and you get 15-19% (yes, I know...), not 51%.

To save a fiver a month, the hassle factor of not having to buy gas for the cooker separately or put up with an electric hob (add those to the price comparison, please), and not having to ring around to compare prices each time is a real plus. We've been on contract for nine months now, and are about to drop off our price fix. The tank's nearly full, since they just stop by whenever they're in the area and top it up. We've not dropped below ~50% full, and we only know it's been done by the delivery receipt on the porch floor. Last time, we were in and didn't even notice!

* 48p/litre, plus 5% VAT. The 1200l tank was fitted in September, empty, and each fill's been to 87%. I make that £526 to fill it, and we're currently £680 in debit, with an estimated empty date of December. A few months of very low usage over the summer - we've got solar hot water - and that debit balance will drop to below the value of the gas in the tank, putting us "ahead". After a few years at that rate, we'll have a paid-for tankful. Our old house, half the size, we were paying £50pcm for mains gas.

captainhindsight_2

ive recently switched from oil to ground source heat pump and am very happy with it. The install is expensive but when the rhi payments come in the payback for my house will be 2.5 years just from the rhi payments not including the saving on oil.

Smiley_Dan

2.5 years! Is that the commercial RHI rate? Are you including the digging of the trench etc?

captainhindsight_2

My total install costs were £25,000 all in, the domestic rhi rate for Gshp is 18.8 pence. The EPC shows a annual heat demand of just under 50,000 kWh (it's a large 6 bed house with solid walls over three floors) this gives annual rhi payments of £9,400 for 7 years so a payback of 2.66 years which is pretty good.

I know my house is a rare example but I believe that a normal sized house would have a payback or around 4-6 years which is still pretty good not including the savings on oil.