LPG gas - how tricksy and expensive is it?

[ReshapeWhileDamp]

We've bought a house which is part of a group of houses that are slightly distant from the main village. They aren't on the gas mains and all the houses have LPG cylinders in their back gardens. I've never had this before (it's an improvement on our current house, where we aren't on gas at all and have poxy electric storage heaters!) and don't really know how it works.

For instance, can you be cunning and fill up on gas during cheaper periods, like I've read people do with oil, if they have oil-fired CH? How expensive is LP Gas, and how often do you have to fill up one of those garden cylinders? Is it dangerous to have one in your garden, or about as dangerous as having gas mains in your house? Do people find that LPG is markedly more expensive than using mains gas?

Thanks for any information - we are currently clueless!

We have a huge gas tank in our garden. It supplies the heating and an aga. It is hideously expensive, but then so is oil, which would be our only alternative here.

There doesn't seem to be a "cheaper" period - Calor set a price and it doesn't fluctuate much.

When you have to fill it depends on how much as you use it.

Dangerous? Don't site the BBQ right next, but generally no more dangerous than mains gas.

So that doesn't really help, sorry!

No, that's fine! Thanks for the information. I know nothing about this stuff. Shame it doesn't seem to be subject to lower prices seasonally, like oil.

I'll make sure my dad doesn't smoke anywhere near it when he visits.

So what sort of gas bills do you get, if you don't mind me asking? And given your personal use (aga and heating) how often do ^you& fill it? We'd be using it for our central heating, hot water and cooking (eventually, though the house has an electric cooker at the moment).

We found lpg too expensive for the house so ditched it and got an oil fired range instead. It was cheaper to extend the mortgage to buy the new range/boiler and pay for oil than it was for the LPG. This was in 1994 however.

LPG great for cars though!

we have a tank in the garden, never really considered it being dangerous, other thank a tank of fuel, in the same way as your car is!
We spend about £1400 a year for a 4 bedroomed house I think.

Our provider (Flogas) allow you to join a scheme where they come and top you up every now and again and you pay a fixed price. We don't do that - DH just checks every few weeks (less in summer) and we order when it;'s in the red. They are almost always here within a couple of days. Even when we had all the snow so they were backlogged AND finding it hard ot get round they were here within a week. We can order online and it's very easy. And when we ran out on the evening of Christmas Eve a guy came out with emergency bottles at midnight. They're not the cheapest at the moment but I can't find enough good things to say about then :o