Absolutely. Even my mother, who worried about a lot of things, wasn't worried when the pilot light went off. When we smelled the gas, she relit the pilot. Most noses are very sensitive and it takes barely anything to smell the natural gas. ... Isn't propane the same way?
Of course were were home 351 days a year. If she'd been away for a week and the smell was stronger than 6 hours of pilot leakage, she probably would have opened the windows and waited for it to air out.
Our oven didnt' have a pilot, and that was lit with a match. Somehow the flame was sucked off the match to the burner, and the match wasn't burning anymore. Spooky.
I have a cooktop that uses the always own very small pilot lights. I think all the old gas ranges were like that. There is no safety device built into them. There would be a possibility that the house fills with enough gas or propane to cause an explosion if the homeowner was gone for a long time. Did they do anything to check for leaks during the inspection?
M. Stradbury:
Nope, sad really. He must have skipped school the day they covered critical thinking skills...
Absolutely wrong!
If the tank and lines are filled with air, there is a small risk of explosion. Reputable suppliers use (tank and line) purge procedures when the tank has gone empty.
But hey, do as you like. It's your house. Will obamacare cover your stay at the trauma center?
Yes. My furnace has three positions on the knob, off, on, and pilot. To light it, you turn the know to pilot. There's a notch at that location that allows you to push down a button and then light the pilot. Hold it for about 30 seconds to heat the thermocouple, and then turn it to the on position.
On a new setup, the lines are filled with air, so it can take a while to purge out the air. Turning the burners on the range helps bleed it out.
It's a lot safer today when a lot of appliances have electronic ignition rather than pilot lights that were always lit.
If the usage is abnormal, sure. If you just let it run out, no. I did have one time when after they filled the tank the tank check valve didn't seat. It was very cold and there might have been enough moisture to ice it up. I could smell it and the tank was going down too fast. They came out, refilled the tank, and screwed another valve onto the filler fitting until they could sort it out in the spring.
With the ethanethiol they put into the gas you'd have to be nasally challenged not to smell a leak.
I only have the pilot on the top burners and not the oven. Sometimes in the summer when the windows are open it will blow out. If I'm not using the stove it can take a day or two before there's enough concentration to smell, let alone be a problem.
I turn the furnace pilot off in the summer. On warm days the pilot can heat the furnace up enough that it triggers the fan sensor. No harm except the fan sounds like a 727 taking off.
That says one part in 2.8 billion is detectable. I'd hate to smell the stuff straight up.
I usually have a few sticks of incense and I'll light one and use that to light the oven. You can get the stick down through the hole easier than a match. With the match if the gas is slow getting up through the hole you can get a pretty good whoosh. Knocks the carbon off the oven racks :)
Per Uncle Monster:
Maybe that's the stuff your chemistry teacher used to keep us under control. The threat was that if we didn't behave, he would un-cork a bottle of the stuff in our classroom. He did do it once... and that was plenty for us...
I just got a 20 pound propane tank filled. It weighted 20 pounds more than the empty tank.
My parents had a 500 gallon for the farmhouse. The coop had a dea= l for people to contract ahead for a cheaper price. I think it included a=
keep full provision without trip charges. The irrigation wells here on propane usually have at least one 1000 gallon tank, sometimes two. There was a time when the coops would use the propane trailers to hau= l anhydrous ammonia in season and vice versa. I don't know if they still = do =
that.
-- =
Using Opera's mail client:
These "20 lb" tanks are designed to take up to 20 pounds of propane. You may get a pound or 2 less, depending on the temperature of the tank and surrounding air when the tank was filled. Cooler = more propane in, hotter = less in. Tanks can actually fit another 20% in the tank, but that extra space is designed for expansion as the temperature rises.
In very cold winter climates, like Canada, there may be more concern/rules about filling a tank to a complete 20 lbs. This is because if you leave a tank outside in very cold temps, filled the tank when the tank is cold, and then bring it into a hot basement/garage for a space heater, the gas will expand as the tank warms. With enough of a temperature increase, the tank's pressure relief value will release a bit of gas. This would be less of an issue if the relief value were bleeding to outside air.
Propane Tank Tare Weight on Collar
All propane tanks have a "tare weight" or "T.W." stamped on the collar of the tank. For a grill sized tank you simply calculate the tare weight
There is also a month and year on the collar indicating the date the tank was made. For 20 lb propane tanks, you have 12 years from the manufacture date before the tank must be re-certified with a new date stamped on it. The re-certification only adds 5 years before having to re-certify again. The cost and inconvenience of re-certifying almost always outweighs the price of a new tank.
Brand new propane tanks may come with air inside and need to be "purged" before the first fill. Some newer tanks, like Bernzomatic, will have a sticker on them saying they don't need to be purged within 6 months of the manufacture date.
Purging requires a special adapter to allow a small amount of propane in. The pressure then pushes air out of a one-way bleeder valve. Purging may add another $3-4 dollars to a new tank, though some places don't charge, especially if you buy the tank from them.
Internet searches suggest the following:
1 gallon of propane weighs 4.2 pounds A "full" 20 lb cylinder should have 4.7 gallons or propane in it
Ive had that happen many times. In fact, even if the pilot is off, my furnace blower may start running because its so hot in the house. I dont use AC. The solution is to just shut off the entire furnace. No gas, no electricity. I rigged up a furnace blower in a window. That sucks the hot air out of the house a lot faster than plain old window fans, and dont cost a fortune to run, like an AC does.
Matches are a pain in the ass. And the cheap cardboard ones you often get for free, are very poorly made these days. The old wooden ones are better. But for th oven (and the burners), I use one of those "fireplace lighters". Basically just a cig lighter with a long extension. That prevents burned fingers.
I shut the pilot off entirely in my oven. I dont bake, so it's probably been at least a year since I used the oven, and that was to dry out a metal can full of nails I forgot to bring indoors before it rained.
They did that when I first bought my tank. But just having the furnace running my tank out of gas because I did not fill the tank, dont let air in. There's still a little gas, but not enough pressure to keep the pilot going.
They did that when I first connected this system up.
They also did it when they insisted my (working) regulator had to be replaced because it was an old model. I bitched about that, because they said it would cost me over $100. They finally just changed it at no cost to me, then pressure tested the system. (This is one advantage to getting gas from the same supplier).
In my last trailer, no AC. One time it got up to
93F daytime, with 103 indoors. The fan came on.Furnace blower fan sounds like a good idea. I sure wished for a window AC in at least the bedroom.
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