LPG dispensing tanks at houses

[diapasion]

Can anyone advise me how difficult it is to get a autogas tank installed at my house? I know Calor and Flogas charge 20p per litre less than my local petrol station if I bulk buy the gas. Does anyone know how much per annum do they charge for the tank?

Many thanks


Alan

[Gilbertd]

They charge 20p per litre less if you are buying LPG for domestic heating, if you are buying it to fill your car then they have to add the road fuel duty to the price. I've no idea what it adds up to but I have seen people on here that have their own bulk tanks comment that they are being charged roughly the same as the filling station forecourt price. A tank for heating has a vapout take-off at the top, to fill your car you'd need a liquid take-off at the bottom and a pump so don't think you could do it without them noticing. The one person in life you do not want to get on the wrong side of is the Customs man.....

[diapasion]

Thanks for that. Didn't realise about the customs duty issue. Many thanks for the response.

Alan

[tommo2009]

contact them direct and see what deal they will give you
http://www.flogas.co.uk/38/contact-us
http://www.calor.co.uk/customer-services/contact-calor/

[Gilbertd]

Even though you won't save much, it can be worthwhile if you don't have a local outlet. I know of a taxi company that runs it's whole fleet on LPG even though the nearest garage is over 10 miles away (and not 24 hour either). They have their own tank and fill at the depot.

[rossko]

It's not unheard of for 4 or 5 private users to set up a small syndicate with a common tank.
One of them needs suitable premises / access to site the tank ; there are rules about where it can sited; so far from buildings, access for tanker, etc etc which the tank supplier can fill you in on.

[SimonHobson]

As mentioned, there is road fuel duty to add (it was 6ppl last time I paid it, but it's a lot more now), plus you should be charged VAT at 20% instead of (IIRC) 8% for heating fuel. That's going to eat into your savings.

Now, you'll need a tank with bottom takeoff (not all of them have it) and a pump. You'll need a "proper" setup, and the gas vendor may wish to see an inspection certificate for the installation - the minimum I've been asked for is a tank certificate. You can pretty well forget most of the pumps for sale on eTat - they just aren't suitable.
Very, very occasionally a used Smiths LPG pump will pop up - and from memory they've gone for "good money" approaching four figures A proper hand pump (like the Krug one I was lucky enough to pick up) are rarer still. I really hate to think what a new one will cost.
Just now and then a complete setup will appear - tank, plump, hoses, etc on a skid. Again these tend to fetch good money.

As an alternative to buying your tank, most of the gas vendors will rent you one - but that ties you into only using their gas supplies which prevents any shopping around. You'll be tied into a contract, but after the initial tie-in you now have the legal right to switch and have ownership of the tank transferred to another supplier. This bit came in a few years ago because suppliers were locking in customers who didn't want the upheaval of having one tank taken out and replaced with another.
Buying your own tank means you can switch suppliers and in theory negotiate on price based on what their competitors will supply you for. In practice, I've never been able to get the major vendors to quote - or if forced quote a price that's clearly designed to get rid of me. Anecdotally I've heard this isn't uncommon - eg Shell will only fill a Shell tank, and so on. So owning your own tank may well mean no-one will supply you.

And then there's the metering - two aspects to this.
Firstly, if you already have gas for heating, contrary to popular belief you CAN use the tank for both heating and vehicle fuel. However, HMRC won't let you buy heating fuel and use it as road fuel. You can either buy all the gas as road fuel, meter the heating gas, and claim back the difference in duty and VAT; or you can buy it as heating fuel, meter the road fuel, and pay the difference. I believe a vapour meter is a LOT cheaper than a liquid meter (and for tax purposes, the taxman will want something "proper"), though I don't have any prices for either.

Secondly, if you get together a group to share a tank, then you'll want to know who's used what - and that means metering the liquid although since it's only for your own use it doesn't need to be a high accuracy one.


On tank siting, from memory the restrictions are roughly :
For smaller tanks, less than 500l, it's 3m; for larger tanks it's 4m. Thats from the tank (and I assume fittings) to any buildings, boundaries, unprotected electrics and open drains. The location must also be such that the driver can observe the tank while operating the pumping gear on the tanker. Those limits make it impractical for most people - though when I've discussed it with potential suppliers in the past I've had the impression that there's some flexibility.

Taking all the above into account, I more or less gave up on the idea a long time ago.