I used to negotiate a deal for ourselves and our neighbours - every 3 years when contracts ended I rang around all the suppliers reps saying that I would bring 6 households in one go if they could do us a deal - we'd then get an offer and I'd ring the next on my list saying could they better this.. and so on. We ended up with some
fantastic deals compared to the average customer and fixed prices for 3 years at a time. I couldn't understand why other people did not do the same as we quite literally saved
hundreds of pounds each (in fact this idea could be applied to a lot of other things other than LPG too if people would just cooperate with each other instead of just accepting being dictated to like sheep by the market - imagine the bargaining power enough people grouped together could get? It just needs people to remember it's the
customer who is supposed to have the power, not the seller). As time went by there were less and less companies each time until we were left pretty much with BP and Calor supplying only in our area, but you could still work the price down between those 2 even if not so much (neighbours bills all went up by
9p a litre immediately at the end of the final contract as none of them took on the negotiating role and I'd had it frozen for 3 years before that). As a reuslt of removing our central heaitng boiler and going to wood I cancelled all further deliveries - we had a full tank at that point and have been cooking on it for 3 years now! ... and it's still on just under 80% ! I reckon it works out at just over 2% a year we use - so you can do the maths to see how long we have left, and
all already paid for. Really, it feels like it's free now
However, you do have to pay the monthly tank rental - I've toyed with having it removed to stop that but am put off by the charge - Calor at least did say they would buy the gas back at the price we'd paid for it (I was hoping they would do so at the current price which is a lot more per litre than I bought it at, but you can't have everything - amazing to think that buying bulk LPG would give you a much higher percentage return over only 3 years than the bank! What a mad world), so we've just kept it on for now. I think I'll leave it until we move and then the next person can decide what they want, in case they wish to put LPG heating back in - though burning £20 notes does work out cheaper as a form of central heating than LPG !
