Filling 20lb & 30lb propane tanks

Try venting the empty down to close to ambient air pressure before you start the fill . This will let the inrush of propane boil and chill , which will drop the vapor pressure in the empty/receiving bottle lower than the vapor pressure in the big tank . Once the fill starts you can close the vent most of the way . Propane is an excellent refrigerant gas ...

Hi Snag, Excellent suggestion, I will give it a try. Unfortunately the 30lb tanks were already partially filled (1/4 way) so I would be losing a lot of product if I vent.

Ivan Vegvary

already partially filled (1/4 way) so I would be losing a lot of product if I vent.

Snag's idea will work in reverse also, hook the 30# tanks back up & warm them up & they will empty back into the big tank, then you can just vent the remaining gas- assuming no check valves in the setup.

MikeB

Use what's in there before you try again ...

I'm going on personal experience , we did our camper tanks from Dad's 200 gallon tank . Also did torch bottles , sure beat the prices at the hardware store !

et tap" on my 500 gallon propane tank. =A0I am trying to transfer propane t= o smaller bottles and have questions.

e valve. =A0Crack open bleeder screw and set for light 'hiss'. =A0Open valv= e at end of hose, and then slowly open valve at the top of the storage tank= . =A0

y fill one of the 20lb. bottles (fill until liquid escapes from the relief = weld. =A0This took exactly 8 minutes. =A0Bottle weighed 18lbs. at start (em= pty) and 35 lbs. finished. =A0Not quite full (38 lbs.) but close.

ll. =A0Left them each on for 25 to 30 minutes. =A0Each of the three took ab= out 8 lbs., at which point I gave up.

ing more propane out the relief valve (30 minutes) than the two gallons I a= m putting in?

in elevation than tank. =A0Big tank in full sunshine, bottles kept cool in = shop. =A0Bottles all newer type with triangular handle. =A0All bottles 'bou= nced' lightly on the concrete to make sure internal float valve not stuck.

inking that the float valves could be a restriction that becomes an issue w= hen you are trying to gravity/pressure feed as opposed to having it pumped = as at the service stations.

I've had problems with some of the new-style fill valves with gravity feeding, none with the old POL valves. The propane services fill by weight, not volume, so you're checking things correctly. You're doing things the way I do. I like more than a foot of drop, but with a fixed tank you're stuck unless you dig a hole. When I made up my fill hose, I added a ball valve immediately before the tank fitting for the cylinder being filled. Leaves the hose filled with liquid when I break the connection.

With this style filling you're depending on the bleed valve to provide enough pressure drop to feed liquid in but not enough to allow it all to boil off. With small cylinders, I've cooled them off before filling, then gravity did the job, if slowly, didn't crack the bleeder at all.

Stan

IME, MOST propane services fill by volume and you pay by the gallon. Take an RV or travel trailer around the country to verify for yourself. Last place I got the 20 lber filled for the grill was in Farmington, NM. The guy only put 4.5 gallons in. Didn't weigh, didn't wait for it to "overfill" as some do, just 4.5 gallons. Period. Same guy filled the empty 30 lb'er with 7 gallons.

Cortez, CO. Same. Gallons. Show Low, AZ. Gallons. Cass Lake, MN. Gallons. Portsmouth, NH. Gallons.

Now that I think about it, I know I've bought propane by weight, but I can't think... ah, Strafford, NH. Pounds. At least one place. And they didn't weight before and after to see how many lbs. you got. They stuck your bottle on the scale, started filling, and when the preset weight was reached, they stopped. If you had a half-bottle to begin with, you paid the same as if you had one that was at 0 psig.

Ferrell brand at a campground today. $3.50 a gallon. Not too bad a markup, considering they claimed they'd come by your site, pick up your bottle(s), fill, and return. (Turned out not to be the case in this instance... I had to self-schlep. Oh well.)

"Steve Ackman" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@wizard.dyndns.org...

The corner store here in Twin Lakes Mi (49965) refills bottles by weight and RV's by volume. All bottles have a tare weight stamped into it, add 5.5 lbs for the filling nozzle and hose, add the containers size and set the balance scale to this number. Say a 100 lb'er is 75 empty, plus 5.5 for hookup plus 100 for propane makes 180.5 lbs and the scale is set to that. When the beam tips the bottle is full to its design content. If the bottle is partially filled the remaining content is easily calculated on the scale before hookup. You pay only for what it takes to fill it. Same for RV's. You pay by the gallon for what it takes to fill it. Bottles are sold by weight and RV's by gallons. They run an honest place there, eih? And that leads to happily returning customers to buy other stuff! Like they say, you're far better off in the long run to make a little money off a lot of people than you are trying to make a lot of money off a few..... You'll have a lot more fun ! ;>)}

Around here (Ontario Canada) any "portable" tank is filled by weight and charged a flat rate. Highway Robbery type prices.

Propane Motor Fuel (same stuff) is sold by the liter into "mounted" tanks.

, on

Are you going to a propane service or to a filling station? I've used filling stations a couple of times, didn't like the way they did it, I now use either a propane service or a tool rental place, both fill tanks by weight. I only pay for the actual fill weight, not the difference between empty tare weight and filled weight. Haven't had to fill the big tank for several years, don't know current propane price.

Stan

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Then they are ripping you off! Start the bitching!

That is fairly expensive, I run my Patrol on LPG which is currently at 65c / litre which is about $2.45 per USG, or about $2.60 US. Not so long ago that would have been about $4 US but your currency is now about 4 floors below ground level.

At service stations, exchange 9kg gas cylinders are about $25 - a ripoff, although, when considering the time to fill them about $18 is reasonable. I fill my 9kg for about $13.70 at the pump (21 litres).

Alan

It is definitely done differently from place to place.

If you are buying "road propane" - motor vehicle fuel, the price is not bad. In SOME states/provinces there is no road tax on Propane, but often you still pay more for propane that is guaranteed to be of a certain composition (can't rmrmber the designation - but it has to do with sulpher levels etc) even though it comes out of the same tank as "bottle gas" for Bar-B-Qs etc.