[Closed] LPG or OIL Boiler?

I thought it was all about pellet boilers around here?

Is your garden of sufficient size to fit an lpg tank to regs ?

Meanwhile - dont you think its a telltail that the supplier will give you a boiler and tank foc to tie you into their contract on lpg ?

I have oil - and use it in a similar method to your plan - to suppliment the stove

How ever as you note oil is pricy to install 600-1200 for a tank and 2k for a decent boiler

I should add - i had a calor LPG system in one rental - i swear that winter i paid more in heating bills than i did in rent - and it was the smallest property known to man. a 1bed studio cottage - recently renovated from ruin to modern building regs - so insulated etc.....

Other advantage is - you can pick up keroscene in 5 gallon drums at your friendly country petrol station if you were to run out like a dafty and the truck cant get to your house for snow.

Brant - Not sure reasonable cost pellet feeder would keep us running if we did not get back there for a fortnight or maybe longer.

Trail Rat - My concern exactly re contract tie ins and rental. Was looking at possibility of buying own tank then sourcing gas at best rate for each delivery but dont know if this is possible/practical. Garden big enough (front very long but shaded so no good for solar) but tank would be well below boiler if mounted where i would like (well out of the way).

We have oil and log burners. Oil is cheaper than LPG but either are hassle compared to electricity. I'd stick with electric, particularly if you're not living there.

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

In august oil was cheaper than some mains gas tariffs per kwh.

Oils up a bit now locally at 34pence - just topped off my tank for winter last week.

you really dont get through your oil that quickly so install a watchman and a quick look when your there each time - top up when it gets to 2 - 2 will still last a month or so assuming you dont want it to be 30 degrees indoors 😀

The biggest hassle with oil i guess is the potential for theft - you have a tank with 700 quid of the black gold in the back garden (i know its translucent)

LPG is a PITA.

The previous owners of our house installed LPG, but chose to go with bottled gas and not s tank (quite poss for siting issues).

The first winter we were there (ie pre-Stove) cost us £500 a month in gas.

Be careful what you go for...!

If you're going to be away for a while it seems bonkers to try to keep the stone walls of an old uninsulated house warm! Have you considered insulating internally first? Then firing up the stove and electric heaters should warm things up pretty quickly when you return from a trip.

the captain speaks ALOT of sense.

i rented an old postcard picture stone cottage for a while.....

it was grim in winter - those stone walls can suck alot of heat - it was one of those mythical places where if you were living there it made sense to keep the heating on low ALL the time.

Even the stove couldnt get the heat into the stone quick enough to stop it going cold in half an hour post stove on an evening .

We had lpg at our old place (rented).
We were tied in to a contract with BP gas. One cold winter BP were quoting us 65p a litre for lpg. Calor and Shell wanted 35p but wouldn't supply us as we were contracted to BP...
LPG is cleaner than oil, but I wouldn't do it again.

The other thing to do is get used to wearing a lot of jumpers and thick socks! I lived for a decade in a house that got to 3C in the bedroom, didn't really do us any harm long-term. Had a heater in the lounge/kitchen which got up to about 18C but was pretty grim in the rest of the house (rented, lots of single glazing, couldn't do much about it).

know that feeling thecaptain. Mrs T-R drew the line at wearing hats and gloves indoors though 🙁

YOu get used to it but I do have a house winter coat - wearing my super thick fleece right now and no heating on yet.

cost us £500 a month in gas.

Would have been cheaper to burn money to heat you 😯
I dont use that a year

but you clearly dont have LPG heating.......run off gas bottles !

I was not trying to suggest I did more an indication of how high the price was they were paying

Sorry if it appeared otherwise.

Would have been cheaper to burn money to heat you
I dont use that a year

Quite so. That was across a four month period - so £2k on gas. Not including the rest of the year or any electricity costs that's twice the national average household energy consumption.

Paying £400 a year for well seasoned hardwood for the stove is, in spite of its apparent middle class vanity, a major cost saving for us.

We're planning to do some work to our house (a 60s bungalow) - insulation is high up the list!

The wife's parent are on oil and they seem to manage fine with very few problems. It was expensive a few years ago but the price has come down a lot.

LPG - can be OK if you get the right deal and can have a bulk tank. As ourmaninthenorth says though DO NOT go for the 4 large cylinder option, we had a similar experience of always running out and costing a ruddy fortune to run.

My house uses LPG from a communal tank. It's very expensive. The house was marked down in its EPC for having LPG heating because it is such an expensive fuel (apparently EPCs take into account cost as well as efficiency).

Starting from scratch with no infrastructure? Oil every time.

Huckle... makes a good point, IF the OP is going to rent it out (or sell) at any point, the EPC rating may be important, due to new Government reg's that are [u]due [/u]to come in about EPC rental requirements. So worth checking the current EPC, is it a 'E' rating or above That's fine for now, if not does oil CH improve the rating? most likely LPG will not be as good, but worth checking.

My F-I-L uses oil and it seems pretty good. Has a well insulated house though, and also some storage heaters dotted around the place. But it doesn't sound expensive.

We're way off mains gas, and I don't know anyone around here who has LPG for heating. The odd one/two bottle supply for a range, but heating is 100% oil.
It's very cheap at the moment but obviously varies. Seems good as a long term bet too - our boiler is around 20 years old, still only costs me £50-80 a year to service once and keeps chugging along. My repair man told me to consider replacing it once it fell off the wall 🙂

Air source heat pump. Getting mine in two weeks, then I can tell Calor to take their LPG tank and shove it up their arse.

We've had both and the LPG was horrendously expensive. (it was getting on for a grand every time we filled the tank up and you do suffer from the lock in issue as discussed above)

Wouldn't have it again tbh.

[i]Will be getting a log burner but as we are away for periods and need to keep the thick stone walls warm it will not do the job alone.[/i]

You need decent insulation, end of.

FWIW we've an old stone built place which is off-mains gas and have a log burner at one end and an (oil-fired) AGA at the other. My folks who had the place before us had electric storage heaters, which cost a pile to run (circa £100 pw in winter) and didn't really keep the house warm.

Rather than an oil-fired boiler, have you thought of an oil-fired AGA (c/w boiler) instead?

The previous owners of our house installed LPG, but chose to go with bottled gas and not s tank (quite poss for siting issues)

Last I looked (a few years ago), LPG was actually cheaper in bottles than in bulk (more competition from suppliers?)

Bottles would need changing very regularly though.

Had LPG for years, now oil. Wouldn't go back.

I don't believe it is an option to own your own LPG tank and shop around, as there are ongoing legal obligations with an LPG tank which the owner (i.e. gas co.) takes care of as part of the rental. They can only fill tanks which are properly certified and maintained (e.g. tank safety inspections, routine OPSO & blow-off valve changes,etc.) which would be difficult / expensive for a private individual to do.

I looked at this recently as we have no mains gas, we went with oil.

Air source is OK if the house is designed for it, by this I mean because the water temp is lower than you get from a gas/oil boiler, you need bigger radiators or underfloor heating. They also recommend secondary heating for when it gets very cold - lower than 3 degrees C if I remember correctly.

Ground source looked good but was very expensive to retro fit, some of the issues with rad size as air source.

The price of LPG made my eyes water.

Marthal, I would be interested to hear how you get on with your air source system, I have a project coming up that would benefit from this.

actually paying to install an oil aga , are you mad.

My grandparents had one installed new in 95 in their new build..... and an oil combi boiler installed in 2005 - and said aga became an ornament that they couldnt get out of their house as it was built round it.....it was costing them a fortune.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/7488832/My-aga-love-affair-is-cooling.html

thats a gas one but the point still stands.

Not in my house - ever. Another Quaint postcard item that once you rid your self of it you look back and thing WTF was i thinking.

great if you want a pizza at 2am after the pub though - wont get a better pizza base from an in house oven.

Or for warming your boots and gloves pre ride home as i often did when they had it working

much sense spoken above - oil beats lpg hands down

if it had been an option for us (locating the tank was an issue) we'd have it

actually paying to install an oil aga , are you mad

yeah that made me laugh too

although apparently they've developed one that switches itself off when it's not needed - you know, like a regular boiler or oven - so they've at least moved into the 20th century.

Advice and experiences greatly appreciated. Will be concentrating on oil given all learned today.

Just another oil recommendation here, especially as your starting from scratch. Despite the initial cost of the boiler, which will then work for years and thanks to the new Saudi refinery, I've just got 900 litres of oil, which will take us through to next Spring, for £280, ie 31p per litre.

LPG is crippling expensive to fuel and run.

Oil ove LPG all the time. Look at costs per kW then absolutely no brainer.
Siting of LPG tanks can be difficult too.
Would not recommend air or ground source for a poorly insulated and draughty property anyway so if you want to go to renewables then wood is only option. And if you are away then you can get a pellet system that is as automated as oil, but it will be costly.
You will qualify for RHI probably but that is changing soon and it is not clear which way it will go. Hopefully a grant for install rather than the current scheme as it is the initial costs that stall most schemes.

We have LPG tank living in the middle of nowhere, for heating/hot water but electric for cooker, it's clean and reliable but it's bloody expensive and as others say we are stuck with Calor. Wish we had oil instead or renewable source, must do it. In the meantime, we just try and use the wood burner all winter (unlimited free wood) to minimise putting the LPG powered heating on.

LPG here, guys here delivering some now 🙁 cost seemed ok last winter, think this is the first time since April I've had a delivery

infinitely better (as in it works) thats the ASHP we removed (1913 Semi) - no room for oil - means to an end really considering the budget we had to replace (none) and no mains gas in the village