LPG is costing us a fortune - any ideas?

Tweetinat

Hi,

We currently use LPG provided by Calor and are charged some outrageous price per litre. We've been in our house 1 year and in that time the cost of LPG has worked out to be around £170 per MONTH :eek: (averaged out over the year).

We're at our wits end to understand how we can go through so much gas when the previous occupiers used about half this amount (we can see their bills online).

It's a 3 bedrooms terraced house over 3 floors. We only have the heating on for 1/5 hrs in the morning and then 5 hrs in the evening. Radiators have been turned off in un-occupied rooms. One annoying point is that our CH system heats the water whenever the heating is on for some reason, so that may increase consumption maybe?

Speaking with family and calor, they've suggested that by having the heating on and off actually increases the consumption drastically as the boiler has to work very hard to bring the house back up to temperature.

So I'm looking for guidance!

- Should we keep heating on for most of the day (I'll have to turn off at night otherwise I'll roast alive).
- Should we get someone in to look at the boiler as it must surely be inefficient
- Would chaging the boiler system to one with an electronic thermostat (which would allow us to precisely set temperatures at specific times of the day without turning off completely) save us money?

I'm clueless about this kind of thing but just cannot bear forking out this money to Calor. We're already in dispute with them about a leak as well as the fact that there's about 10p/l difference between what they charge the neighbours and us so ideally would like to move, but as our tank is submerged in the garden this isn't an option till the competition commission recommendations are enforced.

TIA! Natalie

sammiboo

Ouch that is a hell of a lot!!!

We have LPG - we only moved into our house a couple of months ago. We have estimated an average of £30 - £40 a month. Is it worth speaking to a friendly neighbour and see how much it is costing them?

I wouldnt have thought it should cost you anything like what you are paying!!!

When we moved we spoke to our neighbours across from us about the gas so we had an idea what to expect as we used to have mains before we moved

Tweetinat

Tell me about it!! Its absolutely ridiculous - like you, we estimated around £40 a month and indeed it was also Calor suggested to us based on the previous occupants' usage.

Over the last 9 months, we've been monitoring monthly usage and have even compared this to the previous occupants usage in Excel - we showed this to Calor to support a claim that we must have an un-identified leak, but they just won't believe our claims. Previous owners had a small child and the Mum stayed at home - they had gas on 24/7 and cost was less than half what we pay.

Luckily we have some very good neighbours who have been so kind to let us see their bills since they moved in 2002 (incidentally when all the houses here were built) and we're going to do some more comparisons. They have a larger home then us, so we're hoping to use this to further our arguments with Calor...

But in the meantime I just want to be as efficient as possible with gas heating!

Browntrout_2

If you are unable to change supplier due to being locked in with the tank then they seem to be charging you whatever they like, as you say you have a neighbour with lower charges, especially if you using that volume then you should be enjoying a discount. Write to the calor manager to explain and get a competitive quote form another supplier to remove the tank.

We lived in a cottage and spent £100 a month on calor 5 years ago, we looked at reducing that by installing a stove, this would heat the core of the property and be left on all winter. However we sold the property and moved before installing that.

Tweetinat

Browntrout wrote: »

If you are unable to change supplier due to being locked in with the tank then they seem to be charging you whatever they like, as you say you have a neighbour with lower charges, especially if you using that volume then you should be enjoying a discount.

Yep - that's one of the options we're pursing at the mo - just waiting for the neighbour to confirm current price.

Browntrout wrote: »

Write to the calor manager to explain and get a competitive quote form another supplier to remove the tank.

I tried this one already, but the problem here is twofold:

1. If we remove the tank the whole of the back garden would need to be dug up as we've only got a small area.

2. New suppliers will only install the new tank - we'd be responsible for digging up the eartch and removing the old one. Haven't asked Calor what they'd charge for that, but we really couldn't face doing this ourselves.

sammiboo

Browntrout wrote: »

We lived in a cottage and spent £100 a month on calor 5 years ago, we looked at reducing that by installing a stove, this would heat the core of the property and be left on all winter. However we sold the property and moved before installing that.

The OP said the house was built in 2002, so I would imagine it is very much like the one we have, so the insulation should be spot on. I wouldnt have thought their bills wouldnt touch £100 compared to an older building.

Our tank is under the garden





our tank to fill up would cost £800 and i believe it would last well over a year

david29dpo

In my experience calor are the worst company as far as price. i pay 30p litre with a local company, a friend pays 38p with calor and rising. Round here you can change tanks for free.

Tweetinat

sammiboo wrote: »

The OP said the house was built in 2002, so I would imagine it is very much like the one we have, so the insulation should be spot on. I wouldnt have thought their bills wouldnt touch £100 compared to an older building.

Our tank is under the garden

our tank to fill up would cost £800 and i believe it would last well over a year

Yep - that's exactly how our tank is situated and spot on with the refill amount. We were fully expecting a year's worth of gas from it...

mr_tickle_2

david29dpo wrote: »

In my experience calor are the worst company as far as price. i pay 30p litre with a local company, a friend pays 38p with calor and rising. Round here you can change tanks for free.

When did you last check those prices? Flogas charge over 40p/litre - with 2 price rises in the last few months.

Tweetinat - how many times have you had your tank filled in the year you've been in the property? I know it sounds obvious, but if you moved in and the tank was empty, you used the tankful, then you just had it refilled again, it may skew the charges.

As to your original questions:
- Should we keep heating on for most of the day (I'll have to turn off at night otherwise I'll roast alive).
No - I'd be amazed if it's actually cheaper to keep the house heating on all the time. The exception is if you have it on for longer, but at a lower temperature.

- Should we get someone in to look at the boiler as it must surely be inefficient
Possibly. I'm not heating expert, but I'd imagine that if it were inefficient there would be a large amount of unburnt hydrocarbons in the exhaust. I'm not sure whether that's something they'd check routinely, but you could ask one.

- Would chaging the boiler system to one with an electronic thermostat (which would allow us to precisely set temperatures at specific times of the day without turning off completely) save us money?
Well yes it would to an extent if you decided it didn't need to be as warm in the mornings, say. You could set the mornings to be 20 degrees and the evenings 22 degrees. However, for it to be causing a problem now, you'd probably be able to feel that the house was too warm! Chances are you would only need to change the thermostat itself, not the whole heating system, and I believe what you're talking about is referred to as a timerstat.

mr_tickle_2

Tweetinat wrote: »

It's a 3 bedrooms terraced house over 3 floors. We only have the heating on for 1/5 hrs in the morning and then 5 hrs in the evening.

1/5 hours? Do you mean between 1 and 5 hours? 1 hour on weekdays, 5 hours on weekends? If so, then 10 hours a day seems quite a bit (to me). We currently have ours on for 1 hour in the morning and 3 hours in the evening.

Tweetinat wrote: »

Radiators have been turned off in un-occupied rooms.

Have the other rooms got thermostatic radiator valves? None of them get too hot? (Thermostatic rad valves can stick open).[/quote]

Tweetinat wrote: »

One annoying point is that our CH system heats the water whenever the heating is on for some reason, so that may increase consumption maybe?

So you haven't got a combi boiler? You have a hot water tank? If so, then this is normal.

nalav

Where I am in Worcester area they are charging me 43p litre, can't move supplier as they own tank. Keep getting smarmy letters from supplier saying he can't do anything about it. Need to know what others are paying........