LPG Costs

[jtaunton]

Does anyone know why LPG costs a fortune these days - I konw 'They' say its because of the oil price but, given that oil is priced in dollars, shouldn't I get some benefit from the exchange rate, as a sterling consumer ? Soemone somewhere must.....

And I seem to be burning up a lot of the stuff too......

 

[shaggy]

It always was expensive though. Get yourself a woodburner and a chainsaw.

 

[jtaunton]

Might be something in that - Got filled up again today and had used another 311 litres in the last month. Did look at Solar Water Heating but the time to recoup costs seems to be somewhere between 10-20 years from the people that have quoted me so far.

 

[shaggy]

I really am serious about solid fuel. I've got a stove that burns coal or wood and has a back-boiler that heats the water and 2 radiators that total 7.5kW. It's a gravity system so no pump, diverter valves or room stat to go wrong. It's 24 hours heating even if there's a power cut.
Read all about it here

 

[kendor]

I really am serious about solid fuel. I've got a stove that burns coal or wood and has a back-boiler that heats the water and 2 radiators that total 7.5kW. It's a gravity system so no pump, diverter valves or room stat to go wrong. It's 24 hours heating even if there's a power cut.
Read all about it here

so it's you to blame for global warming!

 

[IanDB]

Does anyone know why LPG costs a fortune these days

You and me both mate! The price has been up and down like a yo-yo over the past few years (at least it has been known to go down now and again!)

I've been told that if you've got a stand alone tank then it is expensive (I think I paid about 30p a litre on the last lot). The galling thing is that I live about 100 yds away from a communal gas tank but the wonderful builders never got round to connecting me up to it when they built the place. It's cheaper on a communal fill apparently.

I believe oil's not that much cheaper either and you can have the additional expense of replacing the tank.

So it looks as though you've got to live with it. Wood isn't cheap either!

 

[jtaunton]

Damn straight. I'm on a standalone tank, and its next to impossible to change suppliers as, if you do, the old suppliers take their tank home with them, so you need a new one put in. And the new regulations say that new tanks need to be at least 9m from pretty much anything else in your garden, which means slap-bang in the middle

 

[IanDB]

When I bought my place (from new) I was originally assured that the tank would be buried. Calor came along and said that wouldn't the case so it went in the back garden 2m (ish) away from anything. Bl**dy nuisance really. What really got my back up was that it later transpired that they installed a second hand tank and a few months back they had to come and replace it.

If you want a laugh I'll post a pic of what they had to go through to get it out. (I should have one somewhere). All I can say is thank God that it was covered by the standing charge!!

 

[shaggy]

kendor:

so it's you to blame for global warming!

Not me no - it's all those planes in the sky! When I buy logs I make sure to ask if a new tree is planted for every one that is chopped down. This makes the wood CO2 neutral because the growing tree absorbs more CO2 than is released when burned. Burning wood can be very environmentally friendly.

 

[kendor]

kendor:

so it's you to blame for global warming!

Not me no - it's all those planes in the sky! When I buy logs I make sure to ask if a new tree is planted for every one that is chopped down. This makes the wood CO2 neutral because the growing tree absorbs more CO2 than is released when burned. Burning wood can be very environmentally friendly.

Very ingenious If correct, i'll let you off then Not sure about the coal burning though?

 

[jtaunton]

Sorry if this is a daft question, but does your burner mean that you have to have it lit in the summer if you want hot water ??

Someone up the street mentioned that they have a boiler that they feed anthracite granules into every morning and it costs about £70 every two months to run over winter (which is about one-third of my LPG costs) - This seems like it could be a more simple replacement to just take out the old LPG boiler and have this fitted in its place. Any thoughts ??

Do you need to be CORGI-registered to cap off an LPG pipe ?? I would still keep it for cooking but would need to disconnect it from the boiler.

Still interested in solar but have yet to have a quote that's payback period would fall into my lifetime.....

 

[shaggy]

I've got a 206 litre HW tank, ie 1500x450, with a top and bottom immersion element. In the summer the bottom element heats the tank from off-peak electricity. The top one is on normal rate but I've never needed it. I actually wired my property for 8 storage heaters but the solid fuel stove worked so well that I never fitted any. The 2 rads were really heat-leak rads but, with the stove outpu,t do heat the whole property because of the high level of insulation.
The anthracite hopper fed boiler sounds economical but one attraction for me is the option to sit in front of a real fire with some logs crackling away but the stove doors can be shut and left safely.
The issue of diy gas was a topic for a thread I was going to post but haven't got around to it yet. The law says you must be competent but only says you need to be Corgi reg to work on other peoples systems for money. Depending on the response to me making that statement may require a thread on the subject all to itself.

 

[kevplumb]

grey area shaggy what defines competency

 

[shaggy]

It appears to be a very grey area on the screwfix forum. Do we need a thread on it here? I'm up for it if you are.

 

[AdamW]

Do CORGI distinguish between mains-supplied gas, communal tank gas and individual tank gas? I thought they only cover mains-supplied gas. Just a thought.

Obviously you should be "competent", but I wouldn't be surprised if it is perfectly legal for an incompetent to work on gas supplied from an individual tank in the garden.