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We recently purchased a home with a propane fired clothes dryer and range. There is a 420lb (120 gallon) tank on the property which is leased from Suburban Propane:
They are trying to rope me into a three year agreement but when I was on the phone with the rep I mentioned that the tank is old and rusty and that I'd like a new one if we decide to lease with them. She mentioned that just for cooking and clothes drying (even with a family of four) we likely didn't need that large of a tank. At our old home we owned a single 100lb (24 gallon) tank for just our range, but it typically lasts about eighteen months, and my wife cooks and uses the oven a lot. When it got low I just strapped it to a handtruck, put it in the back of my pickup, and shopped around for the best price. I'm wondering if I'm better off just buying two new 100lb tanks? I'm just concerned about how much the dryer consumes. We're a family of four with two little girls and I would estimate that we do at least 5-6 loads of wash a week.
We recently purchased a home with... a 420lb (120 gallon) tank on the property which is leased from Suburban Propane ...
She mentioned that just for cooking and clothes drying (even with a family of four) we likely didn't need that large of a tank.
She is correct.
What fuel do you use for heat and hot water?
(and how old is that equipment?)
Quote:
At our old home we owned a single 100lb (24 gallon) tank for just our range,
but it typically lasts about eighteen months...
She is correct. What fuel do you use for heat and hot water? (and how old is that equipment?)
DHW and heat is via a Buderus oil boiler installed in 2008. Boiler is in very good shape and I have no desire to switch to propane for home heating, at least not for the foreseeable future. If anything I may add a wood fired boiler in parallel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrRational
Did the propane company fill it?
No-I was filling the 100lb tank at the old house myself from whatever local vendor had the best price that particular day, but that was just for cooking. I am wondering whether or not two 100lb tanks would give me a reasonable amount of time between refills given the fact that a dryer is now thrown into the mix.
DHW and heat is via a Buderus oil boiler installed in 2008. Boiler is in very good shape...
That's too bad.
Quote:
I am wondering whether or not two 100lb tanks would give me a reasonable amount of time
between refills given the fact that a dryer is now thrown into the mix.
What's reasonable?
IME the variable is the ability of the fuel company to deliver
and if they charge extra for more frequent deliveries.
btw... will they not fill the old 425lb tank?
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IME the variable is the ability of the fuel company to deliver and if they charge extra for more frequent deliveries. btw... will they not fill the old 425lb tank?
You're not comprehending my post. Currently there is a leased 425lb tank on the property I just purchased. The propane company is trying to get me to sign a three year agreement which locks me into paying their price per gallon for the entire term and establishes minimum fills per year. As an alternative I am trying to figure out if it would be worth it to purchase two 100lb tanks that I would fill myself (ie: unhook them, put them in my truck, take them to a propane vendor, have them filled, bring them back, hook them up). Basically, would 200lbs or 50 gallons of propane be a reasonable amount to have on hand, or would I be filling them too frequently given my usage?
BTU calculations tell you how much the appliance uses per hour, but it's a bit hard to quantify how many hours a year my dryer or stove (and oven) are running. That's why I was looking for anecdotal responses-something to the effect of "I have a propane stove and dryer, we cook a lot and do a lot of laundry and I go through X gallons of propane a year."
Just ran some quick numbers, there is a lot of variables involved so this is very rough estimate.
Appears the average electric dryer might consume about 3 to 4 kWh per load, we'll go with 4 which gives you just below 13.7K BTU's.
1 gallon of propane is 91,333 BTU's times 100(gallons) is 9,133,300, divided by 13,700 =
666 loads.... ooh bad number. I rechecked the math, seems high but that is what it comes out to.
Keep in mind this does not account for efficiency and other things, it's rough estimate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Swamp_Yankee
You're not comprehending my post. Currently there is a leased 425lb tank on the property I just purchased. The propane company is trying to get me to sign a three year agreement which locks me into paying their price per gallon for the entire term and establishes minimum fills per year.
They want a contract so they themselves will know what to contract for. They typically buy them in the summer when the cost is cheap. The benefit is if the price spikes you both have a contract, downside is if the price goes down now or in the future you don't get a break. I'm actually surprised they would go with three year contract though, I'd carefully check the wording on that.
While on the topic be very wary of prepayments and make sure it's a well established and very reliable company. It's happened before where companies have taken them and not obtained the contracts, they were gambling the price would go down and if it does they can make ridiculous amounts of money. If it goes up it can literally bankrupt a small company overnight and you will be the one left holding the bag.
It's difficult to estimate dryer usage since it depends in part on how good your washing machine is at extracting water.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Swamp_Yankee
She mentioned that just for cooking and clothes drying (even with a family of four) we likely didn't need that large of a tank.
There are several factors which go into choosing the appropriate size and number of tanks, including weather -- I have two of those 120g tanks, mostly because it gets cold enough here that a single tank of that size might not be able to keep up with demand in the winter.
Quote:
I'm wondering if I'm better off just buying two new 100lb tanks? I'm just concerned about how much the dryer consumes.
If you find you are needing to fill tanks more often than you'd like, could you just buy a spare 100lb tank and/or an auto changeover regulator?
If you estimate your weekly runtime for the dryer, you can use that and the BTU/hour rating to make a fair estimate of usage. It's difficult to estimate dryer consumption just from the number of loads as runtime depends in part on how good your washing machine is at extracting water.
We recently purchased a home with a propane fired clothes dryer and range. There is a 420lb (120 gallon) tank on the property which is leased from Suburban Propane:
They are trying to rope me into a three year agreement but when I was on the phone with the rep I mentioned that the tank is old and rusty and that I'd like a new one if we decide to lease with them. She mentioned that just for cooking and clothes drying (even with a family of four) we likely didn't need that large of a tank. At our old home we owned a single 100lb (24 gallon) tank for just our range, but it typically lasts about eighteen months, and my wife cooks and uses the oven a lot. When it got low I just strapped it to a handtruck, put it in the back of my pickup, and shopped around for the best price. I'm wondering if I'm better off just buying two new 100lb tanks? I'm just concerned about how much the dryer consumes. We're a family of four with two little girls and I would estimate that we do at least 5-6 loads of wash a week.
With that amount of dryer usage and normal usage, I wouldn't be shlepping bombs around in the back of my pickup to save a few bucks. The risk/reward ratio just isn't favorable.
Instead, I would be calling around to three or four companies and asking what THEY have available for contracts.
(If you do decide to transport, secure the tanks vertically. If the valve does fail, it won't shoot you in the back and then place you in the exhaust of a flaming rocket engine.)
We have two of the "big" tanks (about 3' tall), plumbed to a splitter to make change-over easy.
We refill the tanks every 2-3 months, and keep a small tank on hand for emergencies.
We have a propane dryer and range.
There are 2 of us, we don't really cook all that much, and line dry clothes before putting them in the dryer for about 10 minutes. We certainly do NOT get 666 loads out of one gallon of propane (there's gotta be a flaw in that figgerin')
We looked into leasing a big tank; propane would cost nearly twice as much per gallon.
We certainly do NOT get 666 loads out of one gallon of propane (there's gotta be a flaw in that figgerin')
There is no flaw in the math, the flaw is in the assumptions. It's based on electric dryer running for 40 minutes and assumes everything else is equal. If your dry time is running 1 hour and 20 minutes it's now down to about 400. If the propan dryer is 25 % less efficient you are now down to about 300...
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It's difficult to estimate dryer usage since it depends in part on how good your washing machine is at extracting water.
