Spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon just moving things around from where they are to where they ought to be. Brought firewood to Landlady’s place, at last. Moved some stuff she wanted moved from her barn to Ian’s Cave. Moved some wood I’d dumped in Ian’s yard when I thought (pre-Honda) I’d be doing my wood-cutting there. While there I struggled to relocate a #100 propane bottle I scrounged last summer. It has some gas in it but I don’t know how much, I keep meaning to test it with a Heater Buddy. I dropped in at Ian’s yard at the time for lack of any other more logical place to put it, but that turned out not to be a good place, so…
Panting, swearing, cursing the gods and the day of my birth, I shove-rolled the cosmically heavy thing through loose sand and finally got it onto the bed of the Jeep trailer where it was easier to muscle upright and strap it to the front. Hauled it where it needed to be and just dumped it there, promising to return with a handtruck to store it more neatly. People, my shoulders are shot. I never was a circus strongman, now for purposes of moving heavy things I’m just an old man.
And that – added to the fact that I always bum rides to town – is why I stick to 7-gallon propane bottles. 😉
Plus, when you hook up your newly-filled 100# bottle to a previously-intact line and lose all that precious gas, you will wish you were using little 20 pounders. I know I did. Sigh.
That has also happened, which is why I’m looking forward to having another spare and I have emergency bottles squirreled away here and there. You’re never more than one bad valve away from an unexpectedly empty bottle.
I find the 40# ones a good compromise. I’ve been running our gas kitchen range for 10 months on one, so far, and they are just barely small enough to handle. FWIW, I’m 65, and I like to minimize the refilling trips.
I’ll second Malatrope’s response; I’m (still) able to handle a pair of 40 pounders simultaneously, so a 4-pack of them works well. Had to refill a neighbor’s 70 pounder a while back as a favor, and had I not had a wheeled device and straps it would have been a real chore.
Interestingly, refilling a 20 pounder and a 70 pounder locally is conducted at the exact same per-pound price……
Look on the bright side Joel … If the bottle was that heavy , it’s got a bunch of free propane in it …
If you were closer I’d trade you a pair of 30’s for that tank, I need a bigger tank to run my foundry burner the little ones freeze up on me.
Come along. Wrap the strap around it and drag it in the trailer, then stand it up.
Leverage is your friend.
Once I have it at the tailgate my troubles are over. It’s getting it TO the tailgate that’s the problem.
I have one of those big bastards which I inherited. Don’t know what Dad used it for, but it’s damned sure awkward. It’s about the next size down from yours, Joel; has the lip around the top like the 30-40 lb jobs, on which it’s a handle. Anybody lifts my bottle by the “handles” when full, I for one am not going to fuck with them.
I have an enormous LP tank in the backyard, so I don’t need a bottle ( I grill & smoke food with wood). The big bastard is stashed in a corner of the basement, for lack of any other idea what to do with it.
When our ancient all-electric range finally completely died, my wife decided upon a new multi-fuel replacement as it would be (and is) much better for serious pressure-canning of garden produce. It has an LP cook top and an electric oven . . .pretty slick and works great.
In order to accommodate this rascal, we had to arrange for LP as our furnace is an oil-burner. After a real-live plumber ran “black pipe” from outside the foundation wall to the range location, the LP guys installed the necessary tank. The body is about 30″ in diameter and 35″ tall, and that calculates out to about 100 gallon capacity. I have no idea how heavy it is, but they set it with the hydraulic boom on the back of their service truck. The tank truck came later and filled it.
This took place late last summer (2016), and the tank still shows 50% in spite of the usual daily cooking and heavy use during the canning season . . . two canning seasons, actually. If we’re talking apples to apples here, that 100-pounder should last you a long time if you had a way to fill it.
That old style tank you got there weighs damned near as much empty as the new style tanks weigh when they’re full. I have two of those old monsters that I retired when I bought a pair of new much lighter Worthington 100 pound tanks at Home Depot. The old tanks found a new home as very long distance targets on my “Gulch style” shooting range. They’re tough as hell and really sing out with a nice “gong” when hit from 400 to 500 yards away down range.