Calor gas

[AlfieandAnnieRose]

I will be moving to a house that uses calor gas for heating, it has a tank in the garden. I’m completely clueless about calor gas and wanted to ask what are people’s experiences? And costs wise, Is it more expensive?

Costs close to double for all the associated costs of an LPG tank when compared to a mains gas supply

That doesn’t sound good. The area is off grid so it can’t be connected to mains gas

I have a buried gas tank, i have to monitor it and contact them for a delivery, although I believe that some companies offer to top.it up whenever they are in the area.

They are expensive and a bit of a chore but in remote locations there isn't a lot of choice. Oil has similar problems and the tank has to be above ground (and i think requires a different type of boiler).

I don't think that heat pumps have convinced me sufficiently yet to consider making me want to install one.

We've got a 1200 litre LPG tank behind our garage, and it has a telephony attachment so it notifies them when your tank hits a certain level (think it's around 20%). Current cost is 87p a litre plus a standing charge so a full tank costs around £1100 - and we have around 3 full tanks a year. That's with a brand Worcester new combi boiler too - we were using around 5 tanks a year with our old Potterton boiler. 4 bed detached, and only the boiler - no fires/aga etc. We pay monthly by direct debit - usually £250 a month. You can be locked in to a supplier depending on where your tank is situated. We're with Calor Gas, but because it was installed over 30 years ago, it's near a brick wall and to have another tank in, it would have to be re-sited elsewhere in the garden or under the drive and we'd have to change all the pipework into the house (underneath the patio). The expense of it all isn't worth what we'd save so we're screwed basically.

Have a good look into it and what it's going to cost you - but in truth, oil isn't much cheaper these days but I think you can place an order by litre?

Thank you both, that is very helpful.
@HesterPrincess this one is also calor gas and they are notified when it needs filling, same as yours. Is the 87p a litre a fixed figure for everyone do you know? So it would be the same for this one, for example? And has it increased much over the past few years?

I think I may have to ask the vendor what their running costs for it are per year to get a clearer idea!

As a new customer don't feel obliged to stay with calor, if you haven't already signed a contract you can shop around as new customer switch deals are usually lower than existing prices. LPG compare are a good one for this but I think there are others. Sometimes the existing supplier will match this with longer fixes, caps in the second year etc. it will be more expensive than mains but you can definitely negotiate a bit.

I'd also recommend having as much on electric as possible for back up, often in winter the refineries close for maintenance so supplies can get low. Having an electric shower, heaters and cooking stuff can be essential if you find yourself without a delivery for a couple of weeks potentially.

Get the annual usage from the current owner so you know approx how much you'll be paying over the year, you can set up a d/d to spread the cost over the year which id definitely recommend unless you can afford to pay in full each delivery.

Top up deliveries or telemetry (automatic tank readings) are great but still keep an eye on your gauge as they can fail from time to time. Otherwise you'll need to call to order each time, most suppliers have a minimum delivery of about 600 litres.

I hope that helps!

With LPG the supplier owns the tank, so you pay a standing charge and are in a contract with a supplier, you can change supplier at the end of your contract term.

It has a higher calorific value than natural gas so you use less, but it costs more.

We have an old cold house and pay about £1500 a year I guess, it’s not that expensive. It’s either that or oil but with oil you have to supply and maintain your own tank so it’s not just the cost of a new boiler to change (oil boilers are more expensive to buy and servicing costs more)

We pay a standing charge of 27.39p per day and unit price 57p +5% VAT

Just to add we run an Aga with ours as well as heating and hot water.

When we bought our house 25 years ago, it was 17p a litre. You can shop around but it really will depend on your tank and who supplied it. Our NDN's use FloGas but their tank is stood in the garden without anything around it and it was simple to just put another in. Most of our other NDN's are on Calor as well - quite handy when they deliver and we all get a share! I think some other villagers use oil and they've got a collective buying rate - it's just the expense of changing the boiler and pipework you need to add on if you look at changing fuel.

@wallybobs thanks, that’s helpful info. I hadn’t thought of changing suppliers so I may compare prices. The oven has an electric hob and I think the shower is electric too, it’s just the heating and hot water for the gas.

In contrast to PP, I’d caution against having too much on electric. Previously lived rurally and had oil heating plus gas for cooking and a log burner. We were glad we did as any bad weather usually resulted in a power cut, the worst had us out for a couple of days which would have been a nightmare if all of our heating and cooking had been electric. Perils of off grid.

@TiredCatLady that is true. I’d love to have a log burner actually, it’s something I’m going to look into further down the line

Yes, more expensive. We were with Calor and now with Flogas, but have a shared tank for the 25 houses on our estate and pay considerably less than 87p per litre. We fix for one or two years at a time.
IME Calor are useless. We moved to flogas in January and last week I saw a Calor tanker filling the three tanks on our estate…

@ShanghaiDiva that is interesting, I hadn’t heard of flogas before this thread. Was it easy to switch suppliers? I will have to find out how long the current contract is with calor

@AlfieandAnnieRose we have an umbrella contract for the 25 houses so switching is more complicated as everyone needs to agree to switch. For an individual household I think it would be quite straightforward. The only problems we had post switch were with calor’s tank readings as the closing balance from Calor did not match opening balance with flogas. 😖

I agree with @TiredCatLady In remote areas, electricity power cuts can and do happen. In fact, they affect most gas systems, too, since most gas-powered/oil powered central heating relies on an electric pump. We find that a decent wood-burning stove (with the facility to boil a kettle/cook food on the hotplate on top) to be very useful indeed.

Having said all that, Calor are fine. We find them helpful and reliable. Just buy in bulk - alone or with your neighbours. And buy in the summer; refineries need to keep going all year round and so prices are cheaper in summertime. Calor also - from time to time - offers ecogas, made from processed waste. It still emits bad gases when burnt, but genuinely does help with waste disposal.

Easy to switch suppliers, like any energy company.

We pay about 1200 a year for Calor gas, super cosy.

Oh no I didn't mean rely solely on electricity, just make sure there's plenty of back up where possible in case of loss of supply - etc one electric shower if multiple bathrooms, air fryer, access to portable heaters etc.
I worked in LPG for years and saw the annoyance when customers ran out and had zero access to any hot water or cooking facilities. Hopefully you'll never be without but it only takes a bad winter or inaccessible roads to cause a pause for a day or two.

How on earth do you manage to change suppliers though, when the company you use supplies the tank? We're having an ongoing nightmare with ours....

https://www.liquidgasuk.org/domestic/liquid-gas-uk-customer-charter-switch-lpg-supplier#:~:text=All%20bulk%20domestic%20LPG%20customers,you%20become%20eligible%20to%20switch.
details re competition in the lpg market and tank ownership.

The companies buy and sell tanks between them. They can on occasion refuse if there are safety issues but generally as long as you are out of contract it should be pretty straightforward. Contact the company you want to go with and they should do the paperwork for you and contact the existing supplier. Any issues should be clearly communicated to you.

LPG Prices ... I signed contract today 28.05.2025 with Flogas 50p per litre with 16.44p daily standing charge (£60.00 year) I was with Calor Gas 83p per litre. With Flogas of say 1000 litres/tank full I'm saving a whopping £330 on x1 tank of LPG fuel alone!!!