For those of you who are local, or semi local, the place to get propane at the moment seems to be Bretzz RV on Reserve St by the interstate. If you’re a ‘member’ of their ‘propane fillup club’ or whatever the heck they call it you wind up at $0.99/gal. Which means you can fill your average barbecue bomb (which is about $30 new at CostCo just down the street) for $5.
I’d been there the last two weekends but for various reasons their filling station was closed. Not today, though. Five bucks and I’ve enough propane to keep me heated, fed, and illuminated for a few days worth of power outage. I’ve got about four or five of these tanks at the monet, I’ll probably make it an even six. I had refrained from getting anything larger because I didn’t want to incur the penalty to mobility. A 20# barbecue bomb is easy for anyone to handle…when they get bigger, not so much.
By the by, signing up at Bretz’ is free, and they don’t ask for ID, so just go down there, sign up as Heywood Jablowme, and save a few bucks on getting your tank filled.
And, just because if I don’t make a reference to ‘King Of The Hill’ in a propane post someone will feel obligated to do so in comments:
Just a couple thoughts to add to the subject.
The best advantage of the 20#’ers is that if you have an old one that is “expired” (past it’s 12 years since mfg. date), you can exchange it for a better dated tank at one of the many places that do exchange tanks. I’ve only rarely had a fill station check the dates, but it does happen, and I’ve been inconvenienced more than once over the issue. I’ve exchanged mine at Wallyworld, and the clerk opening the cage for me was nice enough to let me paw through the available tanks for the best dated one. Be aware though, that exchange tanks are rarely full, so the bargain price may not be that great.
Most RV trailers now use 30# tanks. Our “Off the Grid” model has 40# tanks, and I added two more for backup purposes. Yes, they’re heavy, but I can lift and carry one if I’m careful with my weightlifting form. Anything bigger would need a dolly of some sort. The 20#’s are easy to carry one in each hand, and I have a half dozen or so of them, stored in a shed far from the house and garage.
Some people are enthused about gensets that can be dual fuel, gas or propane. A great idea, but again a caution to be aware of: Propane burns much hotter than gas, so cooling is a major issue. Most small engines will burn out valves easily with propane unless designed with this in mind.
While propane’s biggest advantage is that it will keep indefinitely, my idea is that in a long term grid down, I’ll be converting freezer stock to room temp storage via the pressure canner over a propane grill. My stored gas and genset will keep the freezer going for the near term, but the long term grid down will be reduced to the propane fridge in the trailer.
My Lord. $0.99/gallon.
I thought $2.99 was a decent deal, when is jumped last month to $3.34/gal.
Commander:
This sounds a “Propa” route forward!
Sorry for the poor joke, but it felt appropriate…
Ceejay
Auditor at Bretz: Why do we have 20 people named Heywood?
Incest.
I’ve been trying to fill at Bretz for over a month, their system has always been down. I was thinking they were backing out of their sale this year but sounds like I’m heading to town this week. Thanks for posting.
Apparently the pump for the tank filling station broke and it took a while to repair. However, always a good idea to call ahead.
I like firearms and firearms accessories.