Anybody locking in Propane price for winter?

Junkman · Aug 22, 2004

Looks like a torpedo left over from the war that someone painted blue. I would fill it now because once it starts to get cold, they put butane in with the propane to help it flow in the cold weather. I have never had a problem with the straight propane here, and I don't like the butane addition because it makes your propane appliances soot up. This was what I had experienced in the old cottage that had a propane heater. Once they put the butane into the mix, I would have problems and have to keep cleaning the pilot and thermocouple. Once they switched back to pure propane, no more problems. Also the kitchen stove would leave black soot on the bottom of the posts.
Where are the barn pictures.... /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Bird · Aug 22, 2004

( once it starts to get cold, they put butane in with the propane to help it flow in the cold weather )

Junkman, are you sure you've got that right? I honestly don't have any technical knowledge myself, but I remember when I was a kid, the first place we lived with "butane" had an underground tank and then when we moved, we had an above ground tank and had "propane". I understood the reason was the fact that butane freezes at about 0 to -2 C while propane doesn't freeze until about -42 to -45 C, so propane was the preferred LPG for cold weather. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif Am I wrong about that?

wroughtn_harv · Aug 22, 2004

Bird I don't know if Junkman's got his stuff together on gas but he's dead on one thing. Bebster owes us some pictures. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Please!

LarryRB · Aug 22, 2004

stuff together with gas? He's loaded with gas.. Whoops, we're talking propane here,. guess I got carried away.. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

gordon · Aug 22, 2004

Your right on the money Bird about the butane. Sometimes butane is added to propane down south when it's cheaper.

They do add a chemical to propane to help displace moisture at times, but the name escapes me right now. All I can think of is acetone or MEK, but I don't believe that is the correct one.

Gordon

Junkman · Aug 22, 2004

Bird....... I believe that it is butane, but I could be wrong. It has been a while since I asked what it was that caused the soot on the bottom of the pans and in the furnace. We now only use propane for cooking and laundry dryer. A 100 gallon tank lasts for a very long time and we fill it only once a year. The store is heated with propane and we go through a lot of it there. 75 degrees 24/7 from September till April. I will call in the morning and check on the product that is added. For all the others comments... yes, I do have gas... 4 ears of local grown corn will do it every time. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif I will also check on the Selkirk pricing.

Junkman · Aug 23, 2004

I was told today that butane is used in propane in the South in the winter and they add Methanol to the propane here in the North. The addition of these products is to keep the moisture that is in propane from freezing. The Selkirk price is presently at $.97 per gallon and he expects that it will go down this winter, or as soon as the oil prices stabilize.

buckle97 · Aug 23, 2004

I always wondered what the difference between butane and propane was. The company I buy my propane from is called The Butane Propane Company. I just assumed I was getting strictly propane /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif.

Lawrence

Bird · Aug 23, 2004

( they add Methanol to the propane here in the North )

According to my Operator's Manual for Safe Dispensing of Propane, published by Ferrellgas several years ago, any new DOT cylinder should be purged and then "Add the required amount of methanol into the tank (1 pint per 100 gallons of tank capacity)" before filling the first time.

gordon · Aug 23, 2004

Yea thats the one ---methanol---. For the life of me I couldn't think of it last night. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Gordon

Junkman · Aug 23, 2004

Gordon..... I just noticed that you have "All Star" status. Is this new or have you had it all along? Congratulations are in order..... either way. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif Junk

daedong · Aug 23, 2004

I may be dumb but what is the source of Butane and Propane gas. Here we have LPG and natural gas and maybe propane but never hear of butane except for tiny little refill canisters for cigarette lighters. While i am asking silly questions does the US have good natural gas field.

OkeeDon · Aug 24, 2004

Vin, propane is LPG. Butane is a form of LPG, too. LPG is Liquefied Petroleum Gas. Both are derived in a similar fashion -- either extracted from the flow of a natural gas field, or as a by-product of the refining process. As mentioned above, propane is liquefied at a lower temperature than butane. Butane also creates less pressure as the temperature increases, so that's why it's more effective for lower pressure applications like plastic cigarette lighters.

Apparently, they can be mixed, but I'm not aware of any butane being added to the propane I dispensed for over 8 years at my store.

The only chemical added to propane of which I'm aware is mercaptor (sp?), which is a foul-smelling chemical added to odorize the gas and make it possible to detect a leak by smelling it.

The primary reason LPG (Propane) is used rather than natural gas is because natural gas is much more difficult to liquefy, and therefore is generally piped to users. If there are no NG pipes in your area, it's too difficult to liquefy it, transport it in trucks, etc., pump it and store it in local tanks. LPG lends itself to that type of handling, so it's used most frequently in rural areas where there are no NG pipelines.

As for methanol used when purging a new tank, I have heard that Dry Gas (which I think is methanol or alcohol or whatever) can be added if you suspect there might be moisture in a tank. I never had to do it on the D.O.T tanks I sold, but I never sold a tank larger than 100 pound capacity (about 23 gallons). I've never seen a D.O.T. tank larger than 200 pound capacity -- not to say they don't exists, but the whole point of a D.O.T. (Department of Transportation) tank is that it's portable, so there's obviously a limit. The types of tanks most people have at their businesses or residences, and also in RVs if the tank is mounted to the chassis, are ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) tanks. I have heard of these larger tanks having moisture issues. But, in the 8 years that I purged tanks, I never had to do anything except replace the air with propane vapor (which is what is accomplished by purging).

Bird · Aug 24, 2004

( I never had to do anything except replace the air with propane vapor (which is what is accomplished by purging) )

Don, of course I've used LPG a lot /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif, living in the country and as an RVer, but only had pretty limited experience pumping it. However, during the one summer I spent where I was doing that, I had quite a few customers come in with brand new 20# bottles to get them filled. I always told them about the recommendation to add methanol (of course for that size tank it would be less than one fluid ounce), and that I did not have the methanol; that I could purge and fill the tank or they could take it to a larger company if they wanted the methanol added. No one ever opted to go elsewhere.

PBMAX · Aug 26, 2004

OkeeDon, the oder addative is commonly, as you may already know, called Skunk.... If you think it smells bad in LPG... You should smell it in pure form..... uuuuuuuuuuggggg....
I have built a few Skunk injection system back when I built control systems... Man we accidentally let one burst go in the wharehouse... We had to air it out for a bit.... The company we built them for was a spin on the Skunk Works name... I did not know there was an addative for colder temps though.... I guees it shouldn't supprise me....

Any body in bama locked in yet... We are considering it this yr given how wet it has been this summer it could be quite an icy winter even for bama....

Bird · Aug 27, 2004

Paul, I think LPG has Ethyl Mercaptan added for the odorant while natural gas has Methyl Mercaptan added, and of course, I don't know what the difference is, but supposedly sulphur is the primary cause of the odor in both. When I was doing gas leakage surveys, one place I checked was a station where the gas company had tapped into a cross country pipeline and was adding the odorant at that point. The pipeline was running at 975 psi that day and, from the odor, anyone approaching that station would have sworn they had a bad leak, but even with very sensitive equipment, I found no gas leaks at all.

OkeeDon · Aug 27, 2004

The one thing I can say for sure about the stuff is that if you are around it enough, it will kill your personal sense of smell, at least to the point where it takes a year or more to get it back. Also, you gradually become immune to it. When I was filling tanks, it got to the point where I could no longer smell it -- or much of anything else, for that matter.

Bird · Aug 27, 2004

I can't say I'm surprised by that, Don, but fortunately, I wasn't around it that much or that long. One article I read in an RV publication mentioned some study that had been done that found that women can smell it before men can, but they couldn't determine why. I'm inclined to believe it, though, since most of the people I've known and those my brothers encounter working on RVs who complain of leaks are complaining because the woman of the house said she smelled it.

PBMAX · Aug 27, 2004

it is definatly some stout stuff. the sample contanier we had was not much lager than a co2 cartrige for a bb guns.... But man would it curl the nose hair....... we used it when building the injector system for testing the PPM output..... If I remeber right..... it's been a few years....