How to refill a BBQ propane tank

January 5, 2007 3:03 PM

When refilling a typical 20-pound propane tank (for an outdoor BBQ grill, if it matters), does it need to be completely empty before disconnecting from the grill and taking it to the gas station?

If the answer is "no," do they purge the tank when you take it to the station, or do they just top it off on top of whatever you've left in the tank?

posted by _sirmissalot_ to home & garden (13 comments total)

Where I live, they top the tank off, but most places seem to have a minimum charge.
posted by neilkod at 3:07 PM on January 5, 2007

It is sold by weight. They weigh the tank as you bring it in and weigh it again after they fill it. You pay for what was added.
posted by JayRwv at 3:08 PM on January 5, 2007

if youre asking whether it has to be empty before you disconnect it, then no. i actually store my tank separate from my seafood cooker/turkey fryer. i dont want some freak acident like a leak in the main line or something. i know its highly unlikely, but if i'm going to close the line completely, i might as well disassemble the hook up.
posted by Davaal at 3:12 PM on January 5, 2007

Hmmmm, I must be buying propane in strange places, JayRwv. I buy it by the gallon. Otherwise it'd be awfully hard to fill the tank that's built into my RV, never mind the portable tank.

The propane in your tank is a liquid -- the gas evaporates off of the top, and that is what you burn. (Mind you, it evaporates very quickly at atmospheric pressure.) It measures just like any other liquid.

(Never use a propane tank on its side -- the liquid may end up coming out rather than the gas, a bad thing.)
posted by MarcieAlana at 3:19 PM on January 5, 2007

I used to fill propane tanks, and tanks were regularly brought in at various levels of fullness. I just topped off. If there is an unforeseen issue, the person filling your tank can vent the propane at their discretion.
posted by lekvar at 3:26 PM on January 5, 2007

Thanks for the answers. I guess this was kind of a no-brainer, but I'm a first-time griller and the tank had all kinds of warnings about how to fill it, so I got paranoid.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 3:36 PM on January 5, 2007

Whenever I've bought gas in England, you give them your one, and they give you a pre-filled tank of the same size, so you lose whatever was left in your old one.
posted by chrispy108 at 3:37 PM on January 5, 2007

MarcieAlana it may be that West Virginia is behind the times. But when I had a motor home and before that a travel trailer the tank was removed from the vehicle for filling. Perhaps they have more than one way to measure the quantity. But I guess the question was does the tank have to be empty. In my experience it does not have to be empty.
posted by JayRwv at 3:43 PM on January 5, 2007

You can pay by the gallon, though you may get a better deal by just waiting till it's empty. When I filled propane tank ~6 years ago, a full tank was its own sku at $10, which was 24 lbs IIRC (20 empty, 44 full), but we charged $0.99/lb for the RVs and to top off tanks if people insisted it.
If your filler has done it for any amount of time, he/she'll be able to immediately tell you if you tank really is low on propane by just lifting it.
posted by jmd82 at 4:05 PM on January 5, 2007

chrispy108: we have a few chains out here that will do that. RhinoGas and AmeriGas both do it. It's usually a lot quicker, and many gas stations around here offer the service.
posted by drstein at 5:24 PM on January 5, 2007

If you want to know how full it is, run hot water down the side. Then feel the side, where it's cool is the propane level.
posted by muddylemon at 5:41 PM on January 5, 2007 [2 favorites]

Hmmmm, I must be buying propane in strange places, JayRwv. I buy it by the gallon. Otherwise it'd be awfully hard to fill the tank that's built into my RV, never mind the portable tank.

I used to 'do propane' as we called it at the gas station I worked at when I was a teenager. We could sell it by either weight or volume - since we had to weight the separate tanks anyway, to tell if they were full or not, we generally sold BBQ tanks by weight and vehicles by gallon.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:14 PM on January 5, 2007

And by 'separate tanks', I mean BBQ style tanks. There was a pressure release system for telling if auto tanks were full.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:14 PM on January 5, 2007