propane canisters

19 years ago

Hey everyone! As mentioned in another post, I recently bought a little single burner, propane camp stove. I have never owned one before so my question is: what do you do with the propane canister when it's empty?? Are they recyclable (sp?)? Do you have to take them somewhere special to dispose? Also, it says on the bottle to NOT store inside, only outside. However, I live in an apt, so no garage or any other outside place to store. Do you think it's safe to store inside? What do you guys do? Thanks, Jenn (Jenn#2 :)

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Comments (3)

jen_
19 years ago
Jenn, I keep mine in the basement. It probably is safe to store inside but sometimes they do leak. I would probably not store those that have been used before inside because they are most likely to leak. I have to admit that I do throw them in the trash when they are empty. However, I don't use many of them. What I prefer to use if I'm needing a smaller size tank is a 5lb refillable tank that I have. It's the perfect size for smaller trips. Also, I get free propane as a perk from my summer campground job! So, most of the summer I use two 20lb tanks and the 5lb one. The disposable ones I'll use only in the lantern!
dalew
19 years ago
Jenn - like you, I've come to own a couple of camping appliances that use the 16oz disposable L/P canisters. And one of them, just like yours, is a single burner propane camp stove. I bought mine when we made a fishing trip that required us to fly to the destination by commerical airline; and had to ship some gear ahead, tote aboard the aircraft and pack as luggage other gear, and buy whatever else was needed when arriving. Since I have a small popup camper, I now carry that single burner (Coleman) propane stove in one of the camper's storage compartments for use as a back-up should I run out of propane with the main camper (re-fillable) L/P tank. That has happened once and the little stove saved the day (night?) until I could get the main tank re-filled.

What I don't like about these disposable (1) pound L/P tanks (besides being expensive), is that I can just imagine land fills being loaded with these things and my adding to the delima. We looked into re-filling them but that is a bad idea in that the valve for these disposables are not engineered to be re-filled, and in doing so there is a high risk that they will leak - nothing like driving down the road and suddenly having the valve fail and all the fuel being discharged, especially in close quarters; an explosion or flash fire looking for a place to happen!

Another thing about these 16oz disposable L/P tanks - they are something like 70 to 80% butane and 20 to 30% propane. Butane is a cheaper fuel and not as efficient as propane. You'll know this for sure when the the temperature starts to drop. Butane ceases to vaporize by 15 degrees(F) whereas propane's low temp is -44 degrees(F). When I have the popup camper's L/P tank (20 lb.) re-filled, it's with 100% propane and everything works, even below freezing, whereas I've had the disposable tanks all but totally quit functioning at the same temps.

Another stove I just about forgot here ... I have my Dad's old Coleman (two burner) propane stove that was passed on down to me. Here I use this stove outside the popup camper, hooking it up to the main camper L/P (100% propane) tank. This way I have the camper's main propane cook stove inside (ready to make my morning coffee) and have the other stove outside under the awning to cook the meals. What I have done here is put a "tee" on the camper propane tank allowing for two connections to the one main tank. And let me say here, for comparison, having this two burner Coleman L/P stove on both fuels, i.e., the 16oz butane/propane combo and the 100% propane from the re-fillable main tank ... the propane burns hotter and more efficient.

Dale
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jersey_ponder
19 years ago
Jenn,
I toss the little ones in the trash, but have taken a lot of the bigger ones to the town when they have their special day for collecting certain things. We inherited a lot of old unusable bigger ones when the boy scout troop folded a few years back.
Lynda

propane canisters

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jen_

dalew

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