It's a Gas

[kevin_standlee]

We took things fairly easy today. Because the weather was so nice (a high of 12° C seems positively tropical), we did deal with one outside chore: installing the new propane gas hose on the travel trailer. This was more difficult than I thought it would be. First, the replacement hose is five inches longer than the one it is replacing (we couldn't get anything shorter), which means finding a way to loop the hose around to use up the extra length without kinking it or preventing putting the propane bottle cover back on the trailer. Second, and more seriously, you have to get the fitting very tight so there are no propane leaks.

I held a wrench on the regulator while Lisa tightened the fitting. How to test for a leak in the fitting: hold a match near the fitting dribble dish soap onto the fitting and look for bubbles. Every time it seemed like the fitting could be no tighter, there were still a few bubbles in the soap. Finally, after several additional tightening attempts, there were no bubbles and Lisa pronounced herself satisfied with the replacement.

The trailer has two seven-gallon propane bottles. Because of the cold weather, Lisa is using the gas furnace in the trailer a lot, and it's also what runs the stove for cooking. Furthermore, as the electrical part of the refrigerator has stopped working (again) but the propane version is working, that's even more gas being burned. As I mentioned yesterday, normally you want to have both bottles running with a "failover" valve in the regulator that swaps bottles automatically when one is empty. In weather like this you check the valve daily. If it shows red, that means one bottle is empty and you replace it with a full bottle, then move the valve over to the other bottle so that it swaps the other way. In our case, we then roll the empty bottle down to Hanneman's Service and buy seven more gallons of propane. This time of year, we're regulars at their place, and they've been very nice to us, including fixing the tires on our hand cart when they went flat.

Comments

[howeird]

Is it possible to use teflon tape to help make a good seal?
http://youtu.be/G3LMrn750Ys

[k6rfm.livejournal.com]

Don't think so. Unlike gas/water threaded pipe where the leakage goes out through the threads, I think what seals in a propane fitting is the little teflon (?) washer around the pin. So if anything were coming out the threads (which is what teflon tape would fix) then the joint isn't right, and you'd want to know that. If just tightening down the nut doesn't work, I would look at the place on the tank that the teflon washer lands on; if that were dirty or damaged it would be a problem.

I used to use teflon tape on water hose joints that I expected to leave for a long time (sprinkling timers, washing machine hoses) mainly to make them easier to remove later, but a pro plumber pointed out to me that I was just covering up flaws in the real sealing (the end of the faucet thread to the hose washer.) Now I just put a little pipe compound on the threads to keep them from corroding together.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I had been about to suggest that to Lisa if it hadn't sealed on that last try.

Too literal, I am

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

So, as you've been saying "we roll the bottle to the service station" I've been taking that on its face value and imagining you and/or Lisa rolling the bottle on its side down the road.

You mentioned "fixing the tires on our hand cart" and I had an "Aha!" moment as I realized the "rolling" was not of the bottle but rather of the bottle on the cart.

Or was that a "Duh!" moment?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

*Laughter* I hadn't thought of it that way, and no, we don't roll the propane bottles on their sides down the road; we do indeed use the hand truck for which the tires had gone flat until they filled them with tire-sealing goo.

[delosharriman]

Not that you couldn't roll the bottles like barrels, but I think they'd get a bit dinged up.