My last 2 houses I've hooked up my grill to the natural gas line. No propane for me!

A 20 lb propane tank should weigh 20 lbs plus the empty tank weight when full.
The 80% has already been factored into the capacity.

Anyone NOT refilling to this standard is incompetent and untrained.

But don't take my word for it...
https://www.propane101.com/propanecylinderfilling.htm
The quote below is from their site...

quote:

The bottle filling station will generally have a cylinder filling chart that converts water capacity (WC) to pounds of propane that the filler will refer to before filling the bottle. The chart will show that 47.6 pounds of water converts to 20 pounds of propane. In other words, a propane bottle that will hold 47.6 pounds of water will hold 20 pounds of propane. This indicates that the scale needs to be set a little over 38 pounds (20 lbs + 18 lbs = 38 lbs) to obtain the weight of the bottle when it reaches its allowable capacity.

More reading content here:
https://www.orangecoat.com/the...-grill-propane-tanks

Thanks Excam and everyone else for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea about Blue Rhino’s shortchanging.
When we took our Alaskan trip this summer in our truck camper we swapped out one of our tanks at a Blue Rhino place at a Home Depot in Anchorage. The tank only lasted a few weeks which I thought was strange and now I know the reason why. I’ll be sure to fill it up at my local farm store in the future.

Have been avoiding Blue Rhino here due to cost, and now knowing the fill part. I use a mom and pop place for tanks trades. They own the local bulk propane business here. $14.00 and always full to legal max. Have four 20#, a 40# and a 100#. I keep these full at all times due to our extreme cold weather. Never know if our back up heat will need to be used.

I am fortunate to have a propane company about 1 mile from home that fills mine to the correct specification and for less too.
You can feel the difference, it's that much.

Son-in=law operates a propane refilling station that he bought from his mother who ran the station for 35yrs. His prices are as low or lower than competitors and provides a honest refill rather than short fill the bottle. Have seen several customers say that they come to him rather than some other sources because of his prices and service that he gives. Plus he is legally allowed to re-certify the bottle experation date and change out valve assy if need be .Also sells bottles and takes old unserviceble bottles out of service............................ drill sgt.

Yeah, the only time I'll go to a Blue Rhino distributor is to rotate an expired bottle for a fresh one.

Price per gallon between Ace and Walmart Blue Rhino are the same here, but thanks to this thread, I'll go see if I can save some money at Tractor Supply.

From Amerigas' website about their exchange tanks:

"Our tanks are filled to 80% capacity. The 80% fill rule is a preventative safety measure against the fluctuations that happen inside a tank. Propane, like water, will expand with added heat. Propane, however, will increase in volume nearly 17 times greater than water with the same temperature increase. To allow for this expansion, propane containers are filled to only 80% of their capacity."

15lbs is standard in all those exchange tanks, why is this a surprise to you?

Buy your own tank and get it filled, it's like 1/3 the cost of exchange tanks.

I bought a tank at Lowes for $35 and get it filled at Tractor Supply.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
15lbs is standard in all those exchange tanks, why is this a surprise to you?

Because that's not the proper way to do business.

Why not fill them up properly when that is what your selling?

Nobody goes in to buy a gallon of milk, to get home to find out there's not a GALLON of milk in the container!

I can tell you,, when I was in the grocery biz we had Blue Rhino boxes outside full of tanks,

for reasons I could never figure out,

the drivers/drop off guys were assholes,
their bosses are assholes,


I do not know it the corporate folks are assholes or not, I fortunately did not have to deal with them,