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LPG - tank or bottles?


carla
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Hello

We plan to use LPG for cooking and to heat one room using a gas stove (the sort that looks like a woodburner but without the mess).  Not sure whether to opt  for a bulk tank or bottles of LPG.  Does anyone have any thoughts on whether the cost of installation and perhaps rental of a bulk tank is justified in this situation?

 

 

 

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There is no rental charge as such, for a bulk tank, at least, there isn't for mine.

What you DO pay is a deposit, in the same way as you will for bottles, obviuously more though. Can't remember whgat mine was, around €800 I think, but it could have been €400. When you leave the house/cancel the contract/sell up, they come and dig it up again, and you get your deposit back!

On top of that is installation: there was little difference between above, or below ground for us, so we opted for below. It's buried in the garden, just a green manhole can be seen. Me and the wife and youngest son then dug out for pipework, laid it and back-filled, and my plumber did the connections. You need special pipe, a conduit for it, and a mesh to put 10cm above the pipe, before covering completely.

We opted for a tank, as at the time, refill costs were lower than bottles, still are, I believe, per kg of gas. We now have part c/h on it too, the tank holds just over 1000kg, when full.

Look in your local Pages Jaunes, or on www.pagesjaunes.fr, and give someone a ring for installation, tank deposit charges. Someone will come out and do a site survey, tell you where you can, and can't site the tank. It has to be a certain distance from the house, but reachable by the gas lorry delivery pipe.

Alcazar

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They only take it back if the people who buy the house from you don't want it though. We took over the contract for our bulk tank. I think the deposit was about 800€. If we cancel the contract during the first 5 years then we won't get the full deposit back. It works on a sliding scale. After 5 years, full refund.

Bulk gas is cheaper that bottles, not sure how much, and it's even cheaper if you wait till the tank is down to about 20% full and call for a refil. That way they can fit it in with the round they are doing. If you have the other option which is a schedualed fill then they will come about every 6 weeks, even if you don't need it. That's the case with Total anyway.

Another good thing about the tank, you don't have to worry about changing bottles at alkward times!! Our tank is an above ground thingy. It hides behind a fence at the back of the house. The fence is ideal for the grape vine that's growing up it and it doesn't worry us at all. Before we moved over we were on a bulk LPG tank so we knew what to expect. But before the tank was installed we were on 2 big bottles with a change over valve. That was OK when we were only using it for cooking although still a pain when we had to change the bottles. When we went from a solid fuel boiler to LPG we opted for the tank and it was much better.

If you do opt for bottles and the heater that you are getting is one of the movable ones with the bottle in the back then for some crazy reason you can only have butain bottles in it. You are not allowed to have propain bottles in the house. The only differences between the 2 are propain freezes (doesn't give off gas) at -40 deg C, butain ditto at 0 deg C so no good outside in winter. The other difference is that propain has a slightly higher calorific value and the regulators work at slightly different pressures. They are both heavier than air, so don't store in a cellar and don't transport bottles on their side because although the gas cant escape the liquid can, don't ask, I don't know why?

People will tell you that LPG is a very expensive option, but it's cleaner and easier than wood and cheeper than electric and it does not give you power cuts when you most need the heat...

John.

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Read the contract and pricing you are offered carefully as in my case for some reason it was cheaper to allow automatic re-fill  i.e. where the tanker regularly calls, checks how much gas you have and fills in appropriate (in fact if I’m in they will ask if I want it done).  If I selected the “call when you want some” option then it was more expensive.  When I say more expensive, I am always charged by the amount fo gas, no delivery charge, just for gas.  The cheaper “automatic” option is a lower rate for a given wt of gas.

 

Also, whilst the previous owners had paid a deposit for the tank, when I took it over they did not want a deposit but had changed to an annual charge for the tank (I’d have preferred a deposit scheme !).  The annual charge is for the tank and is the same however you opt to have it filled.

 

I’m sure different suppliers vary in how they run things, but do check carefully.

 

I used to use bottles in the UK (had 4 bottles of LPG I think 45Kg each – they were about 4 ft high), two connected ant any one time with a switch-over value.  I used those for Central Heating (not used often) and hot water and they lasted ages.  However, I have the LPG tank in France and seem to get through more LPG tanks in France than I got through bottles in the UK (and I still don’t use Central Heating).

 

Ian

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  • 2 weeks later...
Thanks for the replies.  Sadly for us, looks like the deposit system has been replaced by the annual charge.  We need to do some sums to work out whether  we can justify the annual charge  as we're  only planning to use LPG for cooking and one gas stove to supplement the (oil fired) central heating..................maybe a collection of large bottles will work out cheaper.  
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I think it depends where you are. We have now have an electric oven but gas hob and the small gas bottle ( not cube) is at least five months old. When further North and were using a gas fire for taking the chill off the room for  breakfast and occasionally in the evening were using a bottle roughly every three weeks.

For one room I would either extending the central heating or fit reversable air conditioning and stick with gas for cooking.

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If you are only using the gas heater to supplement oil fired CH, the answer is clear. Use individual gas bottles and keep one in reserve. Don't bother with any fancy automatic switch over system, it is easy enough just to change a bottle in a few minutes. The idea of a one tonne citern is way over the top for your set up.

When I read your first posting I thought the gas fire was the main source of heating.

                                                           Alistair

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I have a 1000 kilo tank from Total. The gas is 1.1 Euro per kilo and my deposit 2 years ago was 1150 euros. Trouble is that if I wanted to fill it it would cost 1100 euro's. However Total are very good in as much as you can ring up and just request whatever amount you want. I use a dual fuel cooker, gas oven and both electric and gas rings.

For your set-up you'd probably be better with bottles, I have only kept mine because I have gas central heating and hot water.

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Thanks all.  Sorry my initial posting was a bit vague.  The room with the gas stove  will be heated as part of the main house central heating.  The gas stove will be there to 'look pretty' , take the chill off the room in Spring/ Autumn, and top up the central heating in any really cold snaps....................think we'll go with bottles[:)]
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