I've got 250 gallons being delivered on the 21 of June. That should bring me up to about 350-400 gallons in the tank.

We contracted out annual usage a few weeks ago.  Keep full agreement so they come when it gets to 35% or so. Always have a 400 gallon trailer tank around too for the grain dryer if necessary that will get topped off tomorrow..

Yep, it’s a byproduct of oil. It’s directly tied to it.  Oil is rising, so will propane.

Wow, $1/gal is about half the going price here. You must be near a supply.

We have a 1,000 gallon tank and a hyper-insulated house, haven't been here quite a year yet but the last fill was in July and
just had it topped off a few weeks ago. Just about $1200 for just shy of 600 gallons, so $2/gal here and that's with
a pretty hefty discount. Based on the past year that should get us through April, 2022.

Our supplier allows pre-buy, but has a window that starts on October 1, so unless you self-store you can't lock in summer rates.

Very happy we have such a huge tank for such an energy-efficient house. Energy costs (propane + electric) are literally half
what my old place was.

My local price is around $1.69 per gallon delivered. I was going to wait till Aug or early Sept to fill my two tanks but guess I’ll be filling sooner.

One fill in my 500 gallon tank lasts me much more than a year.....probably nearly two years supply at our use rate for the house. Usually use around 100 gallons for the shop too.

If you own your tank, you can shop suppliers.

We pre-buy every year. Just sent the check for this year, $1.49/gal.

I haven’t ever done the numbers on buying a tank and shopping around. How long does it take to pay off?

500 gal ones are about 1700 plus install or you can diy.... but you can shop around and not be tied in to one place....
The propane is cheaper per gallon when you own.

We have two mini-splits installed in our house and we love them.   We live in Michigan so our winters are cold but we rarely run the furnace in the winter because of the mini-splits.   The wife keeps the house approx 72 degrees and last year we burned about 200 gallons of propane all year.   But we haven't had any power outages and haven't had to run the generator.  

A couple of years back we moved the wife's business into a 1500 square foot insulated barn on the property.   We installed a mini-split to heat and cool the entire structure.   Since this is a business she has her own electric meter and her electric bill is usually 100-125 per month.   That is her lights, a couple of computers, refrigerator, wall mount TV, and heating/cooling.   The lights get turned off but everything else runs 24x7.

We pre-buy propane every year.  Haven't got the latest contract so no idea on what the price per gallon will be just yet.

Same

Can someone please explain the pre-buy thing?

I get it, you buy at today's price for later use but how does it work? Is it year round? 3 months? 6 months?

Where I'm at, you pay today's price for a certain number of gallons (there's a minimum, I think it's 200.)
They open pre-buy in October for a couple months. You then have 6 months to take delivery.

I think everyone is a little different but the basic theme is buying closer to the summer/fall when it's cheaper
and the propane company stores it in their tanks for you until you're ready for delivery.

Prebuy matters more to people that get frequent fills. If you have a large tank that will cover you for a year,
you'd just buy in the summer and not bother with prebuy.

For my area, you pay now and they store it till you need it. The prebuy price is usually a bit higher than the buy it now price but theoretically could be cheaper than you would pay to fill in the winter.

My tanks last an entire year with propane left to spare so I never prebuy anything. Also, my local supplier has the best price around but the prebuy contract is bullshit because the fine print states they (the company) can cancel your prebuy at any time and if the price rises more than a certain amount, they can demand more money before you get YOUR propane that you have already paid for. They send a letter every year with the prebuy offer and I laugh and throw it in the garbage.  If you use a lot of propane and have to fill during the winter, it can be a better deal than buying as you go but the best deal is to have a tank big enough that you only need a single fill per year.

Ok gotcha

I dont really use alot of propane right now so I dont think its any good for me

We fill / top off our tanks in late July or early August.  Our supplier has already stated that this years prices will be significantly higher than they were last year.

I'm having a 500 gallon buried tank installed next Thursday.
In the quote, the included the initial fill on the tank...at $2.55/gal.
I told them I only wanted the tank purged, pressure tested, and 25 gallons put in, and that I would shop around for the best price.  

All of a sudden their price for that initial fill dropped about $0.30/gallon.  Saved  me over 10%

Just got a call Thursday from the co-op here asking if I wanted my tank filled on their summer fill program in the next couple weeks.  $1.25/gal this year.   I think last year summer fill was in the $0.80 range

Buy a big enough tank and you can get it at the wholesale price above so HUGE savings...but most people would take several years to use that much...

I've got until the end of the month on current contract. This thread convinced me to top off before it expires (was down to 40% anyway). I'm just glad I put in a high efficiency wood fireplace a few years back. I went from 3 propane fills a year down to one. Usage is about 250 gals/year now. I only use it for backup heat and hot water though.

Just got our proposed pre-buy contract for the coming year.  $2.40/gal!!  Was $1.99 for the contract just ended.  We have both 1000 gallon and 300 gallon tanks to fill.

The Enbridge line 5 battle isn't going to help prices of propane here in MI.

There’s a 26 percent tax credit on EPA approved biomass installations this year, good for the whole install, stove, chimney, labor, the whole deal.  Jotul F55 v2 or Oslo v3 are great options on the list.

If you don't mind me asking how much was your tank? I've been looking at upgrading my 500 gal to a 1000'er

Had mine topped off the other day
Attached File

Pffft..

Now show me the woodpile.

Well.. technically, I don't have "the woodpile". I have about 8, each has a couple cords stacked. We burn about 2 cords a year, so at any one time I have between 5 and 8 years on the stacks. We have 148 acres of eastern deciduous forest. Couple time a year, I spend a few days.. "firewooding"..

Sometimes it's winter..



Sometimes spring..



Sometimes, it's fall..



Just depends on how the ground is, how the last winter was, and what kind of mood I might be in..



and always.. it waits..

Just a heads up on pre-buy.

A number of folks made the comment that the supplier will store the fuel until you need it. This is NOT the case. Most do not have sufficient storage for more than a few days worth of deliveries, if that. Many smaller companies are actually filling up from another company daily and then making deliveries. If the supply gets tight they WILL get cut off. You don't want your pre-buy to be one of those companies, you want to be with the one that has real storage to ride out a storm or other disaster. Even in that case, pre-buy is just a credit on your account, there's no magic fuel in their storage that is yours and only yours. If there is a real issue and their storage runs low they will prioritize deliveries and pre-buy will help but isn't going to be a guarantee for any particular delivery.

From a business perspective, pre-buy is great for them because it helps their slow season cash flow and can give them some extra allocation with their supplies.

I worked for a mid sized family owned propane company and we were one of the few in the area with real storage. It was a running joke in the area that all the guys buying a truck and filling off us or someone else with storage were only going to be in business until the next shortage. The first time no one was willing to let them fill up because we all needed every gallon for our own customers it would be over. Even we sometimes had issues getting fuel when there were regional or nation wide shortages and we were contracting way ahead and had long term relationships with the wholesalers. We were some of the last folks they'd want to screw over, but if there's no gas there's no gas. That was why we had so much storage and kept it full. In the early part of the heating season we'd have full tanks and it was rare that they would end the day below about 75%. Keep in mind, 80 or so is considered full even on bulk storage. Basically the storage got topped off after the bobtails went out and often a second transport load in the afternoon if we were at the point of running two loads per bobtail or hadn't gotten a load the day before. By the END of heating season we'd often be pretty low because each time there was an issue at the wholesale level we'd get a little further behind. You'd try to catch up but it usually was a two steps back, one step forward kind of thing. We never ran out while I was there, but there were times the propane manager was pushing off less urgent fills for a few more days so we could be sure no emergency fills wound up unfilled. We REALLY liked our customers who had sufficient storage to ride out a few bad patches and would let us fill them whenever we were passing through and had spare gas not already allocated. Each customer that was not going to be an OH SHIT at the next winter storm or week long regional shortage was one more we had in reserve for less prepared folks.

Good info. My propane company has multiple storage tanks (I think they are 20,000 gallon tanks) at different areas in at least two counties. The reason I don’t do prebuy is my supplier writes the stupidest prebuy agreement. Basically you have to pay them but they can cancel it at any time if they believe they can’t supply it. They also refuse to honor the contract price if wholesale prices rise too much.  Most worthless contract ever. They are otherwise a good company but their contract, like most other propane suppliers, is a joke.

I have sufficient storage capacity to run for an entire year plus so I don’t ever bother with the worthless prebuy contracts. For those who use a lot of propane, they make sense and work just fine as long as propane supply remains good. When supply gets tight, bend over and try to relax because it’s gonna hurt. I never worry about propane prices or supply because I buy when it’s the cheapest and have enough capacity for the entire year.

Kalifornia sucks.  Our winter prebuy price is $2.99/gal.  I called just to get a fill and they wanted $3.80/gal.  What a rip!  I do own my own tank and was able to call around a few places and finally got it for $2.65.

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if they got bent over one year in the past because their wholesaler had a similar clause in THEIR contract. So now, to protect themselves, they have to pass it along. We had some weasel room in ours for that reason. Pre-buy folks would be some of the last to be impacted, but it's not a suicide pact.

I really don't know why the industry even bothers with contracts internally. They NEVER honor them when it matters. The suppliers never take the hit when there's an issue and there's basically nothing you can do about it. I think the only reason we bothered was because it got you allocation for when supply was tight. You didn't actually get as much as you were promised, but everyone with a contract would get the percentage their contract represented, even if the price wasn't what the paper said. That might mean you paid twice as much per gallon for 1/10 of the propane, but at least you got something. Our usual solution was to contract more than we needed and get it from basically every wholesaler or location we could. If the pipeline was having problems we'd use more of our contracted amount from the rail distributor and other pipe line.... Since they almost never got through a winter able to supply all that they contracted no one complained that you weren't actually buying and taking your contracted amount. It just meant they had more for someone else who still wasn't getting their fill.

Am waiting for it get more expensive then what it already is for us.

We pay $10 a gal.

It is barged in some big tanks.

If the propane place is unable at times to honor their contract, then they should never write contracts. Bullshit contracts are worse than no contracts. I know after the last short lived shortage/sky high prices (2015 maybe?) a lot of people in my area with contracts got rid of propane completely because they were pissed that their contract was that worthless. Of course, they never read the fine print that specifically stated the contract was worthless so that’s on them.

It might sound like I’m pissed at the propane company I buy propane from but I’m really not. I know they sometimes bring propane to people who can’t afford to pay and allow them to pay it back over the year. They don’t publicize that they do it but they do help people quietly when asked. It’s just that the contracts for propane are truly worthless and if you are buying propane on contract, you better read the contract because you probably don’t really have the cushion you think you do. That’s also why I highly recommend you try to have a propane tank big enough to fill once per year if possible. Then you aren’t held hostage to the scam contracts.

Personally, I love propane as a fuel. In my case, it’s actually cheaper to use propane than natural gas once all the factors are calculated in. If they ran natural gas lines down my country road, I wouldn’t hook up to it. Plus, as we found in the recent deep cold snap of last winter, the natural gas system isn’t nearly as robust and have as much capacity as most people likely thought. While the various utilities were telling people to turn down their thermostats and reduce their usage as much as possible, we kept our house at the temp we are comfortable at and watched the world freeze around us. That big ugly propane tank outside gives me a warm feeling knowing it’s there and it’s got plenty of gas inside it.

Damn. I just ordered my yearly propane order and I paid $1.69 per gallon which I consider pretty high. I paid $1.29 last year and I can’t remember which year it was but in the last 5 years, one year I paid $ .99 per gallon.

What all do you use propane for?

Cooking only thank God.

Some people do have propane dryers,water heaters and cook stoves.

I guess that’s not horrible since cooking doesn’t really use all that much propane compared to heating. How much propane do you use per year?

A contract says what it says, it doesn't say, "we'll absolutely always deliver". Just like their contract from their supplier says "we'll do our best to supply you with X gallons on this schedule at these locations at these prices." but it doesn't say "you'll absolutely get your gas even if the ship isn't allowed to dock and they shut the railroad down because some idiot protester jammed up a cattle train and it's blocking the switch.

Obviously you hope you're dealing with companies smart enough to plan ahead, and if they clearly can't handle their commitments it is time to go elsewhere. I'm a big believer in results not words. Like you say, having storage is the key and that is true at every step. The better companies are never down to their last day's worth of fuel. The smart ones are always trying to be a week or more ahead just in case. In the winter it's tough to be better than that unless you're out in a VERY rural area. The cost for tankage and the space required starts getting silly relative to the need. Most of the year it's wasted and you have to maintain it all. I've seen some really impressive facilities in the mid west. They covered a big area but relatively few customers, but each customer used a lot of gas because they're keeping barns from freezing, using it for other farm needs, their homes... A warehousing facility that might only need a little heat now and then in the south is gonna go through a lot of propane just keeping things above freezing in the mid west. They looked to have more storage at the one place I passed than all of CT. I'm not positive, but I think they were also setup to pull directly off a pipe line AND had a rail line on the other side they could fill offload from at several points. I know the rail was for that, but I'm not sure the piping I saw was for that or some internal use only. I was going by at highway speeds...

A contract that says “you will not get a rebate if the wholesale price drops but if the wholesale price rises, we will demand more money from you” is a worthless contract for the consumer. That’s the point of a contract. I pay a little more for propane with the idea that if the wholesale price rises, I’ll save a little money and if it doesn’t rise, the propane supplier makes a little more money. Theoretically, a supplier does better some years and the consumer does better other years if the consumer buys on a contract.

But, when a contract is written in such a manner that one party can break the contract whenever they want to but the other party cannot break the contract whenever they want to, it’s a contract that only helps one side. I’ll never agree to a contract that the other party can break whenever they want to but I cannot. That’s stupid.  Yes lots of people get suckered into these stupid propane contracts by propane suppliers because they are dumb and don’t read what they are agreeing to. I just laugh and throw it away every year when my supplier mails me a contract offer.

Have your own tank don’t rent.   Go big as you can.  1000 gal biggest tank you can get for residential.    This winter could be rough with prices.

Maybe the biggest common size of residential tank is 1,000, but you can certainly get larger. I've never seen larger than 2500 in a residential application.

The primary reason 1,000 is the largest common size is bc plumbing cost on larger tanks gets expensive. Usually for residential use it's easier and cheaper to plumb multiple 1,000 gal tanks vs a single large tank.