1687 Filling the Gas Tank

[QUOTE=alex and lyn]Have just had our Gas Tank filled in readiness for the winter. We had it half filled back in May when we first had it installed and were advised not to fill it completely as Gas prices were quite high then and likely to fall !
In May we paid 0.65 per litre..just paid 0.73 per litre !! As we had 600 Litres this time quite a big difference. Anyone else just topped up their tank and what was the cost per litre please ?[/QUOTE]
There is it appears no "price " for gas and it varies considerably we are currently arguing with our supplier Total who took over our previous supplier Elf and have without warning and in the space of six mionths moved the price from the 0.49 we used to pay to 0,65 x litre we have suspended payment and if they don't change we will have to get the tank emptied taken out and put in a new one from a different supplier (no fun at this time of year)but war is war.... :(

thought this might be the case....we'll have to see what happens next year now.

[QUOTE=Sebastiano]There is it appears no "price " for gas and it varies considerably we are currently arguing with our supplier Total who took over our previous supplier Elf and have without warning and in the space of six mionths moved the price from the 0.49 we used to pay to 0,65 x litre we have suspended payment and if they don't change we will have to get the tank emptied taken out and put in a new one from a different supplier (no fun at this time of year)but war is war.... :([/QUOTE]

Ohhh dear, it looks like your woodburner in the dining room might just come in handy then, Sebastiano :)

We were told when we filled our tank to do it becfore 30 September and just before Xmas. The prices go up 1st October and Xmas you can't get the tank filled for about 2 weeks

We have just had our tank filled, well 400 litres, as we had just run out (literally - still getting used to tanks and things). We paid E0.80 per litre from Ultragas, have we been ripped off?? - perhaps!!!!

a geometra friend of ours has one of these gas tanks.... he put in his own...and i presume for a good reason ...it means when you want to fill you find the cheapest supplier around at the time.... maybe this would be a future...though not much help at present option...

Oh dear , they came this morning ( 2 men in a van ) one to read the gas level, one to look at the one reading the gas level.
I will let you know how much it is................. When the plumber came, he said it was half full, so thought we should get ready for winter.

I suppose we just have to pay , whatever price they ask.

Let us know what cost is per litre please.... :(

[QUOTE=Farindola]We paid E0.80 per litre from Ultragas, have we been ripped off?? - perhaps!!!![/QUOTE]

Talking with our Italian neighbours who have just had a gas delivery, they paid Euro 0.84 per litre, the original price quoted was 0.87, but as they paid on delivery were offered a reduction! We will need some soon, goodness knows what the price will be, there seems to be no standard.
Anne2

In Spain we buy bottled gas at 74 cents a litre. In Italy, when we checked out the price of bottled gas, it worked out at 89 cents a litre.

We only use the gas for heating water.

just to answer to Sebastiano. I have friends who were thinking to do the same thing than you but they decide to go against it as it appears that if your actual company put your tank in for free they would charge you to take it away so at the end they thought it wasn't worth the hassle (i know that my gas company would charge me too).
although i am sure you could negotiate with the new company to pay for those charges if you sign a contract with them.
i would be interested to know...
ciao

[QUOTE=nathalief]just to answer to Sebastiano. I have friends who were thinking to do the same thing than you but they decide to go against it as it appears that if your actual company put your tank in for free they would charge you to take it away so at the end they thought it wasn't worth the hassle (i know that my gas company would charge me too).
although i am sure you could negotiate with the new company to pay for those charges if you sign a contract with them.
i would be interested to know...
ciao[/QUOTE]
Following my previous posting and the abrupt letter/threatening sent to TOTAL ,they have agreed 1. to reduce the price back down to 0.49 cents x litre 2. To give me a credit note on their extortion attempt at 0.66 x litre .
So it was, at least this time a happy ending to the battle . :)

...on winning the war !!! :cool:

Is that 0.49 cents for 2 litres ..or for 1 litre...makes mine look really expensive but not as much as some of the posts here.....very confusing aint it ??? :(

Nice One sebastiano, well done... :D

Interesting thread. So the best idea would be to put your own gas tank in and play one supplier against the other for the best price?

Good point to remember when purchasing a property.

We're paying 86.5 cents per litre including IVA/VAT @ 20%. Unfortunately we rent our house so have no say in the supplier. We just get presented with the bill from Angeli Gas for the bombolone in the garden. I was horrified to work out that the heating and hot water for our 3 bedroom, very badly (ie non existently) insulated rental house is costing us 25 euros per day. We have two small children and have had the heating on for an average of 4-5 hours per day lately as it is real brass monkey weather. The caldaia/boiler is brand new, so not presumably inefficient. How on earth do pensioners survive here? At €175.00 per week our winter heating costs alone are more than my mother's UK state pension. Does it mean that old people just freeze and die in the winter in Italy or do they get some state assistance?

Would it be cheaper for us to go and invest in 3 electric blow heaters and warm rooms that way? We have one working fireplace in the kitchen and are burning our way through plenty of logs and we're using hot water bottles and wearing thermals. In fact , compared to the Uk, we feel that we are self sacrificing in extremis.

[QUOTE=Mhvoiceuk]We're paying 86.5 cents per litre including IVA/VAT @ 20%. Unfortunately we rent our house so have no say in the supplier. We just get presented with the bill from Angeli Gas for the bombolone in the garden. I was horrified to work out that the heating and hot water for our 3 bedroom, very badly (ie non existently) insulated rental house is costing us 25 euros per day. We have two small children and have had the heating on for an average of 4-5 hours per day lately as it is real brass monkey weather. The caldaia/boiler is brand new, so not presumably inefficient. How on earth do pensioners survive here? At €175.00 per week our winter heating costs alone are more than my mother's UK state pension. Does it mean that old people just freeze and die in the winter in Italy or do they get some state assistance?

Would it be cheaper for us to go and invest in 3 electric blow heaters and warm rooms that way? We have one working fireplace in the kitchen and are burning our way through plenty of logs and we're using hot water bottles and wearing thermals. In fact , compared to the Uk, we feel that we are self sacrificing in extremis.[/QUOTE]

This is it seems a major issue as gradually people find that most of italy has quite a rigid winter though shorter.Apart from basics like good insulation,double glazed windows,keeping windows closed except for brief airing,wearing warm clothes INSIDE, wood burning in rural areas is still probably worthwhile and cheaper though quite labour intensive,and in some houses it's feasable to run radiators/hot water of the stove/fire although unless one's in all the time would probably require gas back up.It's asdvisable as we have discovered, to not turn completely off the heating rather leave it on say 15° it ,will if all above is working properly , be off on the thermostat most of the time,then when you require more heat,say in the evening put it up to say 22° for 2-3 hours you'll find quite a saving.We also use an electric blanket with merino wool (they're safe nowadays and make a big difference) especially as we have to sleep with the window open because of the cats!!!!
I guess the bottom line is we have to forget those really "hot" urban rooms in winter and live like cave dwellers....sorry bout that

When we lived in the Dolomites we had ourselves constructed a remarkably effective heating edifice called a [I]stube[/I]. A [I]stube[/I] is a furnace type thing covered in ceramic tiles the large mass between the tiles and the furnace retains the heat for a long while and radiates a warm glow. The idea is that you feed the tiny mouth twice a day with logs and when they have burnt down to glowing embers you close the airtight door (risk of explosion if done earlier - so I was told). The embers then smoulder away for 12 hours or so until the next feeding time. If you open the door before 12 hours you will look in on oxygen-starved charcoal that will glow brighter as the air enters. You can have it designed in any manner of shapes and sizes, you can sit on it or dry clothes on it or have it in a separate Stube_warm_as_toast_room or simply open plan to heat the entire house by convection flows. Apparently they are an Austrian thing and hence you find them in the former Austro-Hungarian part of Italy but not as far as I know in Piedemont or elsewhere.

[quote=sdoj]A [I]stube[/I] is a furnace type thing covered in ceramic tiles the large mass between the tiles and the furnace retains the heat for a long while and radiates a warm glow.[/quote]

Is this the kind of thing you're talking about?
This is currently sitting in the living room of the house we're purchasing. Since it will be staying, I'm quite keen to find out exactly what it is, how it works and how effective it is?
Thanks.

[IMG]http://fez.saadian.com:8080/stube.jpg[/IMG]

Yours looks like a wood-burning stove. A stube is quite different - it is a purpose built thing usually the size of a deep squat double wardrobe with most of the bulk being made up of a substance that retains the heat - presumably similar to what is used in electric-night-storage-heaters and then covered over with ceramic tiles. The risk of explosion comes if you close the door when the flames are still raging - the only outlet/inlet then becomes the chimney and the danger is that the furnace will be drawing in so much cold air that gases can't excape...boom. I think what would happen in reality is that a crack would open up after a loud bang not complete devastaion but that would be bad enough because it would have to be re-built and they don't come cheap. A wood-burning stove draws air in through a vent at the bottom and hot gases escape through the chimney. The reason a stube doesn't have a cold air inlet is because it is designed to be leen burn - a bit like a giant charcoal hand-warmer. There is essentialy a struggle in the chimney between cold and hot air flows, which keeps a very small amount of fuel burning for a long while - they are very efficient and effective.

As sodj states your looks like a wonderful woodburning stove! they are very popular here as the gas is so expensive and wood is plentiful! Sadly our house does not have one but we are seriously thinking of installing one.

[quote=sdoj] A wood-burning stove draws air in through a vent at the bottom and hot gases escape through the chimney.[/quote]

Thanks. I presume, then, that there's probably a vent somewhere underneath this burner and that the heat simply comes from the main body of the burner itself?
Quite a small door for the wood. Sticks rather than logs?

Having now looked more closely at your photograph, ther is no evident sign of a vent although you appear to have a draw for ashes, which is probably not air-tight. Also you seem to have a lot of bulk above the "furnace" that could be a storage unit. Perhaps this is a hybrid - a stobe - we could call it. Our stube had no ash collection drawer the ash would simply accumalate (but surprisingly little) on the floor of the furnace, which we would clear out no more than the three times over the winter. The door of our stube was quite small but when you buy would in it is usually cut into smallish chunks. The usual supplies are faggio (beech) and pino the latter having the higher calorific value but apparently stubes prefer pine.