Bulk LPG - Cheapest suppliers / supply route?

Smithm wrote: »

Interesting - I've got exactly the same letter but my 'standard rate' has gone from an apparently discounted 50.9p up to a standard 54.4pppl.


Looks like their standard rate is '4p more than you were paying'. Swines.

What region are you in and what is your annual consumption?

I'm SE Cornwall and only use about one tank per year.

Smithm wrote: »

I'm in Nottinghamshire and use on average £200 a month. Gas aga, in case you're wondering...

I think Agas should be avoided as a way of heating/cooking. Unless its wood of course and only then if you have cheap supply. I have never come accross anyone who rates them. A mate got rid of his aga oil cooker as it was using more oil than the central heating.
I am afraid I would never be in a rush to get rid of LPG for oil as the cost of replacing the boiler would not pay for itself at least not for me. Also I have never heard of LPG supplier raising there prices in extreme weather. The price of oil doubled during the bad snow. Cooking with gas is also far cheaper than oil and is availble when your electric is off.
Will an oil cooker work when there is no electric????
By the way for those who might not know LPG gives you 7.11 KWH while Oil gives you 10.35 kwh per litre assuming 100% effiency, so your LPG needs to be 30% less per litre to equal oil.
Anyone got a price for oil per litre at the moment? as I think they are beggining to close.
I am of course ignoring any extra costs associated with oil or gas. IE cooking tank costs oil/gas and serviceing.

SD-253 wrote: »

I think Agas should be avoided as a way of heating/cooking. Unless its wood of course and only then if you have cheap supply. I have never come accross anyone who rates them. A mate got rid of his aga oil cooker as it was using more oil than the central heating.

I agree. When we moved into our property (old poorly-insulated 5-bed in an exposed location) the CH was done via the LPG Rayburn. The costs were truly frightening! We were getting through about 200 litres of LPG per week and I swear that was using the heating sparingly! Three reasons for this I think - firstly it was an old AGA so terribly inefficient compared to today's boilers: probably about 50-60% efficient vs. 90-98% today. And secondly as it is also cooker and is "always-on" via a pilot it would use 60 litres on a week just idling! We still have the AGA and am hoping either to find someone with more money than sense to take it off my hands (as they do at least look gorgeous) or its off to the scrappy. Thirdly poor insulation which we have been tackling as money allows.

I am afraid I would never be in a rush to get rid of LPG for oil as the cost of replacing the boiler would not pay for itself at least not for me. Also I have never heard of LPG supplier raising there prices in extreme weather. The price of oil doubled during the bad snow. Cooking with gas is also far cheaper than oil and is availble when your electric is off. Will an oil cooker work when there is no electric????

It was a difficult decision whether to stick with LPG or move to oil. Moving to renewables would have been my preference but the costs just didn't stack up. Because we needed a new boiler anyway (to replace the aforementioned AGA) it was an easier decision to switch I guess as the only additional outlay was the oil tank. We reckon it will take us 3-4 years to recover the capital costs and then it will be cheaper and also less hassle to run on oil as opposed to LPG. With LPG you also need to take into account:

1) Tank rental costs which obviously you don't have with oil

2) Contracts which tie you in and you have no choice but to accept price increases whereas with oil you can at least "shop-around" for the lowest price. In our first year with LPG Flogas increased the price 3 times on us over what was admittedly a bad winter - increasing from 39ppl up to 59ppl blaming cold whether each time. Maybe Flogas jaded me too much but after dealing with them I wanted off LPG as I just couldn't get round the fact of being saddled with one supplier and having the price dictated.

3) This may not be an issue for some but you can have bigger oil tanks than LPG tanks - I think the largest domestic LPG tank you can have is about 2000 litres but in reality you can only fill this to 85% capacity as the gas needs to expand so 1700 litres. With oil there is no limit per se.

What I like about this is that I can fill up our 2500 tank with oil over the summer months when the price dips and then have no hassle with top-ups in the winter (we live on a narrow lane so if snowy/icy is difficult to get deliveries), we cn ride out winter price increases, etc as we fill up in the summer, etc. With LPG we kept running out every couple of weeks and so were constantly stressing, topping-up and being screwed by price rises. But admittedly if we had an efficient LPG boiler this would have been less of an issue.

By the way for those who might not know LPG gives you 7.11 KWH while Oil gives you 10.35 kwh per litre assuming 100% effiency, so your LPG needs to be 30% less per litre to equal oil.
Anyone got a price for oil per litre at the moment? as I think they are beggining to close.
I am of course ignoring any extra costs associated with oil or gas. IE cooking tank costs oil/gas and serviceing.

Well let's assume that servicing costs and boiler efficiencies are the same for both. You're right that LPG needs to be 30% cheaper than oil for it to be cheaper to run. According to the Notts Energy Partnership's August data oil is marginally cheaper per kw/h than LPG (7.21 vs 7.62). In previous months the gaps in favour of oil had been much higher though (eg. June was 6.15 vs 8 for LPG!). This is one of the things I like about oil and having a big tank - I can fill up whenever the price is lower.

I guess it comes down to personal circumstances whether switching is worth it. But from our experience we'd definitely recommend oil over LPG and know more people who have switched this way than vice versa.

longforgotten wrote: »

One good thing about LPG is that no one can nick it !

It would break my heart to have a big tank of oil only to have the oil nicked. This crime has become rife in some rural areas......or is it diesel that they're after

Anyway, I wonder if the oil is covered in house/contents insurance ?

That's a good point - LPG can't (easily!) be stolen.

Different insurers handle this differently so advise folks to check with their specific insurer to see if it's covered and to what limit. Usually comes under garden contents ...