Motorhome propane tank - safe emptying/use

[David]

I managed to "blag" a gas tank from a similar motorhome, but it turned out that they were not quite same enough.

So it won't fit in my MH and a gas fitter told me that as it is more than

10 years since it was tested it would need a retest anyway before it could be fitted to anything else.

So I now have a nearly full gas tank with no obvious immediate use.

I don't even have any propane (red tank) appliances apart from in the MH - couple of very small cookers which run on butane (blue tank).

So I can't throw it away, I could probably arrange safe disposal but there is all that gas......

So, any suggestions?

One germ of an idea it to heat the shed with some kind of propane heater, but (assuming the purchase price is at least as much if not more than the value of the gas in the tank) this looks like throwing good money after bad. Anyway, I assume that anything more than an armoured flexible hose and a regulator (as used in portable gas devices) would require some professional (or at least inspired amateur) installation.

So suggestions welcome.

Am I wasting my time trying to utilise the gas or is there some simple way to use it?

Oh, and I would be reluctant to just sell/Freegle it because of the potential danger to the uneducated user.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Update:

Google and eBay have loads of heaters between £50-£100 but they seem to be mega kilowatt space heaters.

I reckon I need something probably only a couple of kilowatts to take the chill off in the winter.

Best option so far seems to be a Sealey at just below £40.

Could always buy one with the aim of selling on once the tank is empty (or converting to use red bottles).

Cheers

Dave R

[newshound]

You don't say what size, presumably a smaller one like 6 or 13 kg?

To avoid giving/selling to uneducated user, does the Caravan Club have a web site? Do you have a local camping site? These sometimes carry a small stock of cylinders?

Plumbers and roofers sometimes use propane, someone might give you beer tokens if it fitted their kit.

Here is a propane heater if you have a big shed!

[RobertL]

Also, houseboats often use bottled gas.

R

[Tim+]

I've never known a motor home or caravan heater that didn't run on both. Depending on age of van you may just need to change the tank regulator.

Butane is only really suitable for very "fair weather" use.

Tim

[David]

The point is "fit" as in not enough space.

The van already runs on Propane.

[David]

If it was a standard portable red tank I wouldn't have this problem.

One option with larger motor homes is a fitted tank to replace the portable ones. You refill the tank at the petrol station using the same LPG that goes into LPG powered vehicles (whatever happened to them?).

This one is a black cylinder with domed ends and a gauge and take off in the middle. The volume stamped on the side is 70l. So possibly about 40-50l of gas inside. You don't fill them more than 80% so (I am assuming) a fully charged 70l tank will actually hold 56l. Unless, of course, the stamped volume is the amount of gas held i.e.80% of the total volume.

Anyway, it is sitting in a wheelbarrow at the moment looking neglected and ignored. Under cover, of course.

At around 60p/l the value of the gas at the pump is around £25-£30 (although buying it pre-packaged in bottles is likely to be a lot more expensive).

Well, at roughly 2kg to a litre 50 litres would be 25kg so presumably just about the same as 2 * 14kg propane bottles (refills, that is) at £26.25 a pop. So £52.50 worth if you are using bottles. Scarily, the 6kg propane bottle costs nearly as much as the 11kg at £20.25. Note to self - only use the 6kg bottle as an emergency spare and replace the 13kg bottle as soon as possible!! [I can fit on 6kg and one 13kg bottle in my gas locker.]

If I wanted to use a gas heater this would be a cost effective option by delaying the £60 charge for a new bottle. However putting in a gas heater would eventually require a replacement of the big black tank with a smaller red tank. So the only cost effective method seems to be to buy a small heater and then flog it on eBay once the black tank is empty.

Still cheaper than buying the bits to get my wood burner installed in the shed.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Typing all over the place, and not even drunk yet.

Large reds are 13kg, not 14kg or 11 kg.

Cheers

Dave R

[Harry Bloomfield]

Tim+ was thinking very hard :

Correct...

The older way was to use a bottle mounted regulator, to suit the bottle, propane or butane, then a low pressure pigtail to the fixed copper pipe.

The more modern way is to have a single fixed pressure regulator mounted on the firewall, set at a pressure between the usual for butane and propane.

The regulator is then connected to the bottle via a short high pressure pigtail, which suites the bottle type in use.

[dennis]

Gas barbecue, blow torch, camping stove, assuming it has a normal propane valve on it you just need a propane regulator.

[newshound]

Ah OK, I had not realised it was "non-standard".

I suppose (since we *are* talking DIY) it should be possible to transfer the gas to empty "standard" cylinders. After all, we do much the same with butane for filling lighters and those little gas torches as used by chefs (and by me for heat shrink and soldering away from power supplies). This would *seem* to involve connecting them together perhaps with flexible hose with a closed valve in series, inverting the supply tank so that the outlet was right at the bottom and opening the valve. Obviously, with due care about naked flames and somewhere well ventilated and not a cellar.

Anyway good luck with it. I *hate* waste too!

[Roger Mills]

Eh?

[David]

Yes - not my best day yesterday.

Changes the figures quite a bit when you work it out as 100kg, doesn't it.

[David]

Although, I have to say, the calculation looks good(ish), just that bit of the explanation looks dodgy.

1 litre is about 0.5kg so it is 2 litres to the kg (factor of 4 out?).

If it was the other way round a tank with 50 litres in would weigh over

100kg (about two hundredweight?) and would be a little hard to man handle.

Never a child with a calculator around when you need one.....

Cheers

Dave R

[tabbypurr]

The rest of society has no problem selling full bottles of gas to whoever. Sell seems the obvious solution.

NT

[Brian Gaff]

I thought one could get regulators for the interchanging of red and blue tanks. Brian

[David]

One can - and I have regulators for both blue and red tanks. I also have devices to use both blue and red tanks.

However as posted earlier this is a 70l black tank.

I had assumed that as I was discussing a tank which was to be fitted to a Motor Home that this would rule out portable tanks. My fault - I should have been more specific.

Cheers

Dave R