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Propane gas canister price shock!

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Mars

(@editor)

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Topic starter 28/01/2026 3:21 pm [#2785]

I just came back from the local hardware store and had one of those “wait… what?!” moments that I didn’t expect in 2026.

We use an 11 kg propane canister for the gas hob on our cooker… the top burners are gas, the oven itself is electric (so don’t @ me about “gas isn’t efficient” 😂).

I was genuinely gobsmacked when this 11 kg bottle came in at £48 on the till. Last time I did this (around October) it was more like £28.

LPG used in bottles like this obviously isn’t included in Ofgem’s energy price cap, unlike mains gas. That means it’s entirely subject to wholesale market swings plus the normal retail markups, logistics and cylinder supply arrangements. £48 is brutal.

Anyone else seeing similar prices around the country? It’d be interesting to compare what people are paying.

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Batpred

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28/01/2026 8:32 pm

Posted by: @editor

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We use an 11 kg propane canister for the gas hob on our cooker… the top burners are gas, the oven itself is electric (so don’t @ me about “gas isn’t efficient” 😂).

We did not bat an eyelid with that, every time we visited the petrol station..

Clearly efficient at clearing bank balances!

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Majordennisbloodnok

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02/02/2026 2:00 pm

I can't provide a direct comparison since we use 47kg bottles. However, I looked back to last purchase (December 2024) and the price was actually slightly higher than what I'm being quoted right now (£116 then vs £95 now - both per bottle).

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JamesPa

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02/02/2026 2:49 pm

Posted by: @editor

↑

I was genuinely gobsmacked when this 11 kg bottle came in at £48 on the till. Last time I did this (around October) it was more like £28.

LPG used in bottles like this obviously isn’t included in Ofgem’s energy price cap, unlike mains gas. That means it’s entirely subject to wholesale market swings plus the normal retail markups, logistics and cylinder supply arrangements. £48 is brutal.

To put into context thats 31p/kWh. According to this link gas hobs are 40% efficient and induction hobs 90%. A simple induction hob retails at around £400 or more and of course you may need new wiring.

Last year we used 300kWh of (mains) gas for our hob, So had we been buying that in bottles it's about 2 bottles, less than the standing charge of £109 we have to pay (although sufficiently cvlose that its not worth converting!).

The equivalent electricity to deliver the same amount of energy would cost £40, saving £50. That's a fair payback time!

You have a good deal IMHO despite your shock.

This post was modified 3 months ago 4 times by JamesPa

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Majordennisbloodnok

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02/02/2026 3:15 pm

@jamespa, the economics of our situation is different, but not vastly so.

We're buying two 47kg bottles every 14 months or so which, at the £95 I just mentioned works out at 14p/kWh or a smidge over £160/year. To supply the equivalent effective cooking energy using an induction hob would be (at an assumed and pessimistic 20p/kWh) just a gnat's whisker over £100 - a saving of fairly close to £60 per year.

That said, and obviously given we use bottled gas, we have no gas standing charge and our cooker - a Rangemaster that's between 15 and 20 years old - is still going strong and doing exactly what we'd like it to do. A replacement with an induction version of the same model is £2,400 which doesn't make financial sense based on payback time but is exactly what we'd like to end up with. As a result, we're just going to run our current one into the ground and replace like for like (except for gas --> induction) when it breaks. I will say that if the price reduces significantly, we may well swap anyway and try to sell our existing one privately.

That gas standing charge of yours really does make a big difference.

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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JamesPa

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02/02/2026 4:17 pm

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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That gas standing charge of yours really does make a big difference.

Its quite infuriating. £109 standing charge per annum, fuel cost £18. But still its going to take a long time to payback if we switched. We have a separate hob but of course there is essentially nothing to go wrong except the piezo starters for which a match will substitute. I think it will get changed when we change the worksurface, probably in <10 years.

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Majordennisbloodnok

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02/02/2026 4:26 pm

@jamespa, I agree. I do keep reminding myself that not everything has to be justified by payback times. I'm sure there will come a time when we decide a new range cooker is justified because we want one, and I don't think anyone can reasonably argue against that.

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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JamesPa

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02/02/2026 4:33 pm

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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@jamespa, I agree. I do keep reminding myself that not everything has to be justified by payback times. I'm sure there will come a time when we decide a new range cooker is justified because we want one, and I don't think anyone can reasonably argue against that.

Indeed. If the carbon saving were greater I would be much more motivated, but saving 50% of the carbon from 300kWh of gas isn't really material!

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Majordennisbloodnok

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02/02/2026 5:20 pm

Agreed again, @jamespa. That "because I want it" justification will probably happen once we have the money to cover it and "new shiny thing" takes pride of place in the priorities list. Let's not forget I'm the primary cook here, so there's a lot influence I can bring to bear.

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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Judith

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02/02/2026 8:06 pm

We moved to induction hob to be gas free. But I have to say it is MUCH nicer than gas, even quicker to warm up and obviously much easy to clean.

We didn’t change anything else in the kitchen so got a shock when we found that the hob we had bought had to be mounted flush (planned DIY job) and that other models were designed to be mounted on top so has strong edge support. Just shows you can always do more research!

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