Experiences with LPG heating?

[edgeware]

We are looking at a house that says it has LPG heating on the listing. Beyond the cursory google, we're not sure what that really means in practicality! Most importantly, whether it is an utter pain in the behind?

Could anyone share experiences?

I don't but I have friends that do, and have considered properties with it in the past. From memory:
Boiler is basically the same as a gas boiler in terms of cost/servicing/performance etc.
You will have an LPG tank somewhere, possibly underground, that needs checking to ensure its in a good state.
Running costs are slightly higher than oil fired heating and obviously much higher than mains gas. I think there's also some sort of issue with local supplier monopolies compared with heating oil so less options to shop around for the cheapest supplier, but I'm sure someone else can comment on that.

Thank you @FurierTransform, appreciate the insight. That is roughly what we thought it would mean - bit more expensive. What we aren't sure of is how often it needs checking, replacing, etc. I also wonder if it's the sort of system that could be 'easily' replaced for something more efficient or eco-friendly in future.

We live in a rural hamlet and both I and my neighbour across the road have LPG and my immediate neighbour has an oil tank. We all have small two bedroom cottages and are two person families.

Cost wise I think it really depends on what you will use for heating. We only really use our LPG for heating water (daily shower each) and very occasionally, for the central heating system, otherwise we have a wood burner to heat the main rooms of the house so we only replace our gas tanks approx 6 times per year at a cost of approx £55 per tank. Our neighbour across the road won't use their wood burner for heating (too messy so decorative only) and in winter was replacing a gas tank on a weekly basis as she was heating the full house and having daily baths and showers.

Our oil tank neighbours seem to fill their tank twice a year but I'm not sure of the cost for them but it is a large tank so possibly £600 per time(?). We considered an oil tank when we moved in but decided against it in the end as we would have lost much valued driveway space to accommodate it plus the initial costs and upheaval was off putting.

Changing an LPG system to another system is straightforward enough but of course the initial cost of changing boilers, pipe work, labour etc will be relatively expensive.

Also be aware, if you stay with an LPG system to check your bottles regularly. I got caught out once mid shower/shampoo when the water suddenly went freezing cold. The gas tanks had run out and I wasn't aware! Certainly woke me up that morning!

I had LPG on a rental I lived in, it is more expensive then natural gas but, at the time, on par with oil heating.
The house had 4 x LPG bottles out the back, it was a pain in winter because we went through a bottle every 2 weeks so it felt like we were constantly ordering bottles. We then moved to a house that had an LPG bulk store in the garden, and we just ordered the gas when we needed to, a bit like you would order heating oil. Found the bulk tank to be more cost effective.
Apart from the outside tank, the heating itself worked like 'normal' gas heating, with thermostats etc. The guy who did the annual gas safety check on the boiler also checked the bottles or tank.

A few years after I moved out (just down the road), the landlord sold the property to new owners. They had the LPG system taken out and put in a heat pump instead. It looks like an air con unit on the back of the house, but equally a stonking great bit gas tank isn't the prettiest either! If you've got room for LPG tanks, it's most likely you'll have room for a more eco friendly heating source like a heat pump.

I haven't had LPG heating but have looked into it. For size of property it was going to have to be a bulk tank as bottles wouldn't have lasted anywhere near enough. With a tank, which can either be over or underground, but which is subject to very strict regulations on positioning, should you need to replace it, you effectively pay a yearly rental for the tank on top of the cost of filling it. You can also have a contract for a year or two for the supply of the gas, but I'm not sure how much competition there is amongst suppliers. We stuck with oil in the end because a new installation was getting more and more complicated.

The best advice and information I got came by googling and ringing up a company who installed tanks and supplied the gas, it really brought me up to speed on the pros and cons.

We have LPG and the tank is rented from our supplier. We pay an annual fee of £70 and when they come out to fill it they do a safety check. They also replace it free of charge after a certain period of time. Not sure exactly how long but our was replaced with a brand new tank last year and we've lived here almost 7 years. We fill out tank twice a year and it costs roughly £500-£600 for a full tank but you can get fixed term contracts and negotiate your gas price for the term so you know it won't change. We switched supplier when we first moved in and it was really easy, the new supplier just takes over the rental agreement for the tank, no need for them to put their own in or anything like that.

The most frustrating part we've found with LPG is boiler maintenance and our job is gas fired too. You have to have a gas engineer who is registered to work with LPG, a corgi gas engineer is not necessarily qualified and it can be a pain finding one. We eventually managed to get a maintainable contract with British Gas but you have to remember and ask for an LPG engineer when ou book your service.

*hob is gas fired

We did. All worked fine, engineers who serviced the system needed to be aware it was LPG and not natural gas so that they sent out the correct person to do the service, but otherwise all fine (serviced annually as per natural gas). The costs are definitely much higher (and a lot higher than oil), we had a contract with Calor (think it was fixed for 2 years) and we had a large metered tank which they managed so we didn't have to worry about running out etc. Bills came from calor quarterly.

We've had 2 houses with LPG and it's no problem. Costs more than mains gas but just means negotiating a good contract with a supplier. Our tank is under the ground - so no unsightly tank to look at - and we have it on auto top up so we never run out.

LPG is the only option for thousands (maybe millions, I don't know) in remote areas. Not ideal, but then natural gas or oil aren't exactly brilliant for the planet, either.

Calor do 'BioLPG'. Propane (LPG) is still propane, but a fair proportion of it ( if 'bio' ) comes from renewable sources, not from oil.
www.calor.co.uk/biolpg

We've just negotiated a two year contract for that at very good rates.

We were wary of the LPG when we bought our house earlier this year. We hoped to have a ground source heat pump instead but was told our garden wasn't big enough so would have to be huge boreholes - not great next to a house with no foundations. Also no guarantee it would produce enough heat for the whole house.

We ended up having a new LPG gas boiler put in as our tank doesn't need servicing for another 7yrs apparently. The tanks have to be checked every 10yrs but new ones need to either be buried or have a one metre gap all around it. Ours is up against a wall so will need to be moved/buried if we stick with LPG long term.

We've had no issues ordering gas but it is expensive. About £500 to 3/4 fill the tank. These days you can get a device to tell you it's running low, but we don't have one. Our supplier gives a lower rate if you have a contract and I think there's a rental charge for the tank as they are responsible for it.

We were advised by most heating engineers to change to oil. I prefer LPG after listening to the arguments for/against oil (mainly having to have a huge outdoor boiler stuck on my wall by the back door ).

We had the gas fires cut off as can only imagine the LPG they would go through, and we had the range swapped for induction. The wood burners were already condemned so we haven't bothered having fires in.
We haven't had our first winter here yet so no idea what the cost will be but as we have a winter baby due, I'm guessing it will cost us a fortune to keep the house warm.

We had no issues getting an LPG qualified gas engineer, but there are far less of them around.

For reference, we were offered mains gas at a cost of £50k that we would have to pay the entire cost of. Just before we moved here they were apparently offering it for £7k per house but everyone turned it down.