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Delivered propane prices?
On Friday, February 22, 2013 10:51:09 AM UTC-5, Wayne B wrote:
On Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:20:49 -0500, J Herring wrote: The same is true in Virginia. My daughter uses gas. When she threatened to switch suppliers, her company decided it had been charging her too much and gave her a refund of over $2000. ======= With wholesale prices at around $1/gal, anyone paying much over $2/gal (+tax) is paying too much and should negotiate for a better deal. Agreed. I pay a $50 per year rental fee to the company that buried my tank, and buy my propane from another company that gives me a good deal. I save more than $50 in a single fill of the 250 gallon tank. |
Delivered propane prices?
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Delivered propane prices?
F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 2/20/13 8:12 PM, Eisboch wrote: "F.O.A.D." wrote in message m... If you have propane delivered to your house to fill a large residential tank, what are you paying per gallon in your part of the country? We're paying $2.79 a gallon, which is about average for delivered propane in this market. ------------------------------------------ Don't know if it's considered "large" but we have a 100 gallon tank that fuels a heater in the garage. Just had 46.5 gallons delivered and the bill was about $175 which works out to about $3.68 per gallon (after the small delivery fee). So, I'd say you are getting a great price. Well, there are significant regional differences, but it is interesting to see what prices are in other parts of the country. I don't know anything about the propane marketplace other than a few local prices. Our $2.79 includes the delivery. We're on an annual contract of sorts. Based upon usage over the last few years (albeit with a different propane company), the current propane company estimates our gallonage usage for the year and we pay a flat fee every month toward that amount. If the price goes up or if we use a lot more than the estimate, we make it up at the end of the contact year. If we use less, we get a refund, plus 2% interest. This is not an unusual arrangement. Most companies in this area offer a similar deal, and have a similar deal for home heating oil customers. Sounds like bull****. If it's true, the 2% interest is cheaper than the IRS levied on you, eh? |
Delivered propane prices?
F.O.A.D. wrote:
Propane gas prices do vary, just like gasoline prices, and there are wide variations based upon geography. We burn about 350 gallons a year, running a hot water heater, gas fireplace, cooktop, one of our furnaces and, so far, the 10-minute "test run" once a week of the generator. Obviously, the furnace in the winter is the big user. I really like the gas fireplace because there's no wood to buy, no insects in the wood coming into the house, no smoke and no soot, and it puts out a lot of heat, and, of, of course, it's "on" by flicking a switch. You own a hot water heater? If the water is already hot, why heat it? Save the money and pay you long overdue tax bills, deadbeat. |
Delivered propane prices?
F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 2/21/13 3:36 PM, Eisboch wrote: "F.O.A.D." wrote in message m... That $2.54 price at the bottom of the short list in the URL was a "special price" all new customers get when they switch from their old propane provider to the company we're now using...25 cents off per gallon on the first tank full-up. Our new provider is locally owned and seems a hell of a lot more customer-service oriented than the provider we had for more than nine years. That company was owned by an out of state corporation. ------------------------------------- That's the only problem with propane. You really can't shop for competitive pricing ... at least not in my state .... because only the supplier who installed the tanks can fill them. If you want to change suppliers, you have to get new tanks. Not a huge deal but the supplier also typically requires a contract that you will buy only from them for some number of years. If you own your own tank here, you can shop for propane, but the supplier we are now using gave us a good deal on the plumbing necessary for our back up generator, plus a discount on the first fill, and its prices are competitive. If I wanted, I could change suppliers, but I have no reason to do so. Are you going to pay him? If not, the price is irrelevant. Your unpaid taxes are relevant and will catch up to you. |
Delivered propane prices?
Eisboch wrote:
"F.O.A.D." wrote in message m... On 2/22/13 8:02 AM, Eisboch wrote: "F.O.A.D." wrote in message ... Unfortunately, "life as we know it" ceases with a power outage, since we're on a well. We have bottled water for drinking, but without water to wash up, flush toilets, et cetera, you might as well mosey on over to a motel if you are facing an outage that might run more than two days. Several of our neighbors got a "deal" on 10,000 watt generators on wheels and jury-rigged hookups to their circuit breaker boxes, and these work ok but the hookups look scary to me. Also, apparently they cannot run their heat pumps off these units because of the start-up power requirements. This is way over my non-electrician pay grade. ----------------------------------------------- During Hurricane Wilma (while we still had a house in Florida) I had purchased a 12,500 watt "portable" contractor type generator and installed a transfer switch to the power panel. We also had well water there with a 220 volt pump and electric hot water heater. Since the little Honda doesn't generate 220 volts, I figured we'd be all set. When the power was lost, I fired up the big generator and quickly learned how much fuel it went through during the first day and how noisy the damn thing was. Not knowing how long the power would be out (turned out to be over a week), I hooked up the little Honda, just for a refrig, couple of lights, a TV and the Direct TV box. In the mornings, I'd fire up the big generator for about an hour or so to take a hot shower. We had an accumulator on the well water system, so it was good for several toilet flushes without power. I'd run it again for a half hour in the evening to recharge the accumulator. Running the big generator this way was sufficient for the water issue. I also fired up one of two A/C units, just to see how the big generator handled it. It was fine, but really not worth the fuel burn since it was November and not all that hot or humid. The Honda ran 24 hours a day for the 7 or 8 days until commercial power was restored. The next summer is when we had a pool installed at the house in MA. The contractors used the Honda every day that summer and part of the next to power the stone saw they were using for cutting the bluestone. By that time, I figured the dusty Honda was probably pretty much worn out and I put it away and forgot about it. It sat unused, with stale gas in it for the next 6 years until we had a storm and lost power for several hours. I dug it out and much to my surprise, it fired up after a few pulls and ran fine. As mentioned before, I used it again two weeks ago and it ran non-stop (other than refueling twice a day) for the three day outage. I am really impressed with these little generators. When this one finally dies, I'll probably replace it with the EU3000i model and get the adaptor for an external gas tank. I've calculated all the current draw we'd require to heat the house, run a couple of refrigerators and some lights. The EU3000i will handle it fine. According to Generac, a 17KW unit burns 2.57 gallons of propane an hour at full load and 1.30 gallons at half load. Half load or less is the most common running speed. 24 hours of operation at 1.3 gallons an hour...that's about 31 gallons a day times, let's say, $3.00 a gallon...that's about $100 a day, which, even in these parts, will barely get you a hotel room if you can find a vacancy. The reality is, most of the time a household generator will running at far less than half speed. We seriously considered a wheeled generator, but the power comes into the house on the far side away from the garage, and that means stumbling around in the dark or in the rain or in the dark and rain or snow or whatever, pushing the unit across the yard and plugging it in in similar circumstances, et cetera. A couple of feet of snow in the yard and the unit would stay in the garage. Had the power come into the house outside the garage, with the panels in the garage, a wheeled generator would have been just fine. -------------------------------------- I was just checking current prices for a whole house generator. The contractor had recommended one in the 17Kw to 20Kw range. At the time (back in 2006) he quoted a little over $8k for a propane powered one, installed. Prices must have come down since, because I see you can get a Generac 17Kw for under $4K. Installation can't make up the difference in price, I don't think, especially when all the underground power leads exist from outside to the power panel. I had that installed during the pool installation since the yard was all dug up anyway. Must have been a union contractor. :-) The difference is air-cooled vs water cooled. Earl |
Delivered propane prices?
In article , earl1734
@hotmail.com says... F.O.A.D. wrote: On 2/20/13 8:12 PM, Eisboch wrote: "F.O.A.D." wrote in message m... If you have propane delivered to your house to fill a large residential tank, what are you paying per gallon in your part of the country? We're paying $2.79 a gallon, which is about average for delivered propane in this market. ------------------------------------------ Don't know if it's considered "large" but we have a 100 gallon tank that fuels a heater in the garage. Just had 46.5 gallons delivered and the bill was about $175 which works out to about $3.68 per gallon (after the small delivery fee). So, I'd say you are getting a great price. Well, there are significant regional differences, but it is interesting to see what prices are in other parts of the country. I don't know anything about the propane marketplace other than a few local prices. Our $2.79 includes the delivery. We're on an annual contract of sorts. Based upon usage over the last few years (albeit with a different propane company), the current propane company estimates our gallonage usage for the year and we pay a flat fee every month toward that amount. If the price goes up or if we use a lot more than the estimate, we make it up at the end of the contact year. If we use less, we get a refund, plus 2% interest. This is not an unusual arrangement. Most companies in this area offer a similar deal, and have a similar deal for home heating oil customers. Sounds like bull****. If it's true, the 2% interest is cheaper than the IRS levied on you, eh? Why is the propane company paying higher interest than the banks? |
Delivered propane prices?
wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2013 21:38:19 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote: I had a friend who lived on Long Island who installed a propane heater for his pool and then regretted it as he watched his tank being filled weekly. When we put our pool in here in MA, I went for an electric heater. It's big (150,000 BTU heat pump) but we only use it to initially get the water temp up in the spring and then later in the fall to extend the pool use a bit. Most of the time it is off. I have a 330 KBTU propane heater on our pool and I think we have only used it 3 times. You can see the gauge move on a 150 gallon tank and the pool does not really get that warm if it is cold outside.. I sue my solar collectors in the spring and fall but if it is getting much below 75 at night, the pool will be too cold for us to get in it. I switch the solars over to the spa in the winter. It stays toasty for free. When they were putting the pool in, the electrical contractor was trying to sell us a whole house, propane powered generator. He said we could tie it into the 100 gallon tank we have for the garage heater. He ran all the wiring for it but, after thinking about it, I elected to hold off on it. That was 7 years ago. The number of times we have been without power for any extended period of time in the last 7 years just doesn't justify the cost of a huge generator like that, plus it would also go through propane fast. I just got a propane kit for my little 5.5KVA generator. That will be enough to keep the fridges going, run the mini split in the bedroom and pump our water. That propane tank will run it for quite a while. I have not filled the tank for a while. I am not sure what the price is. It was about $2.70 the last time I did it. I will top it off before summer. I live in an upscale area. We have natural gas, delivered via underground lines. Most we have been without power in 33 years is about 12 hours when the underground transformer blew. Underground utilities here. |
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