On 8/9/12 11:49 AM, John H. wrote:
On Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:07:24 -0400, X ` Man wrote:

On 8/9/12 9:31 AM, Wayne.B wrote:
On Thu, 09 Aug 2012 09:08:04 -0400, X ` Man
wrote:

It's a bit annoying that the propane dealers around here don't post
their prices on their web sites. I don't mind paying the local
"convenience" street price for filling up a small tank for an outdoor
grill, but I'd sure like to know what the 20 or so "local" delivery
suppliers are charging per gallon to fill our 500-gallon tank without
having to call each one of them.

There should be a "Propane Delivery Price" app!

====

Why not create a web site similar to what cruisers have been doing
with diesel fuel prices?

https://www.waterwayguide.com/fuel-pricing?area=cbdb


That would be an interesting thing to do, but then you'd have to recruit
a huge number of "reporters," and a homeowner buying a tankful of
propane usually does not happen more than two or three times a year. As
an example, we have a gas furnace, hot water heater, rangetop,
fireplace, generator, et cetera, and we've never used more than 350
gallons of propane in a calendar year. Typically, the truck comes by for
a partial fill-up in October and then another partial fill-up in March
so that on those two dates, we actually have about 400 gallons of LP in
the tank. Obviously, usage varies according to appliances and
geography/weather. Plus, propane prices vary widely from dealer to
dealer in the same market, depending upon when they bought their
supplies and other factors.

I was intrigued by this because a neighbor bought a near tankful of gas
for about 25 cent less a gallon than I paid. His supplier was helpful on
the phone and told me the wide variance is common among all dealers
during the year, that at the next fill-up, his price could be higher
than my dealer's, and that prices typically changed weekly.

So, what is needed is not reportage of what Joe paid last week in nearby
Dunkirk, MD, for example, but what XYZ Propane is charging for delivered
LP *today* and what his 10 nearby competitors are charging *today*, so a
call can be made and a delivery order placed for the lowest-priced
supplier at a given moment.

I'm going to contact my local state official to see if there is any
interest in requiring propane dealers to post their delivered prices
daily on their websites. They all seem to have decent websites. That
way, it would be easy to check individually or even write a spider that
would gather the prices on a webpage as you described.

Before you go thru a rigmarole - the company that owns the tank is the only company that can fill
it. Of course, if you personally own the tank and it meets the requirements of the other companies,
you can deal with anyone. Otherwise, if you decide to switch companies, be prepared to switch tanks.
My daughter is going thru this right now. She'll probably have two tanks at her house while waiting
for the current tank to empty.

When you stick to decent posts, you shouldn't deserve to be shunned.


1. You are correct in stating that the company that owns the tank is the
only company that can fill it, contractually.

2. I bought my tank from the company that owned it.

The approximate cost of a new *buried* 500-gallon tank these days is
$2000 to $2500, I was told by two suppliers. It was about $500 to $1000
less when we bought this house. An above ground tank is much less
expensive.

I bought our tank for under $500. The LP gas company had been
depreciating it for about 9 years, and company's cost of removing it so
I could replace it with a new tank was more than the company wanted to
pay. So the company made me an offer I could hardly refuse. I did
this to save the 30 cents a gallon premium I was paying to fill the
"rented" tank, and to be able to shop around for the best LP gas price
when the tank needs a refill.

These buried tanks supposedly have a "life" of 25 to 30 years if anodes
were installed. They were on mine. I'll worry about the tank's end of
life at that time only if I'm not buried.











--
I'm a liberal because the militant fundamentalist ignorant
science-denying religious xenophobic corporate oligarchy of modern
Republican conservatism just doesn't work for me or my country.