Almost blew up my house tonite!!!!!!!

[TR Custom Parts]

Like most of us, we like to use the outdoor grille on our deck even in the winter. I keep two propane bottles on hand as we always seem to run out in the middle of grilling some filet mignon.

Anyway, my spare bottle was out of propane and the other in the grille was running low so I decided to get both filled today after work.

Went to the local Agway and had both filled up, paid and headed home. Took the bottles out of my Blazer and put one into my shed and put one in the garage (under my raised ranch) with the intention of hooking it up to the grille in a few minutes. Well, one thing lead to another and ended up on the computer making up a website for my friend's machine shop.

In the meantime, my wife had taken my son to his karate class and was gone for about 2 hours. Me, I am pounding away on the keyboard oblivious to all around me. The wife and my son came home and then I realized I smelled propane fumes! I flew out to the garage and the damn bottle was leaking out of the safety!

The garage was filled with fumes and at least I wasn't dumb enough to hit the light switch or use the electric garage door opener. Opened up the garage door that wasn't on an opener and the back door to air things out. Crisis averted.

Had put the bottle outside and went to open the valve to let out some gas to see if that would relieve the pressure but nothing would come out!? Now this is a brand new bottle that came with the grille that I bought new this summer.

Went out to the shed to check the other bottle and though that one wasn't leaking, when I opened the valve that one wouldn't let out any gas either??!! Now I know both of these bottles are fine as I had opened both valves before I went to get them filled and they both had a bit of gas in them. I also know that they were a lot heavier after they were filled so what is up with that?? It is about 20 degrees out so could that have something to do with it? Never had something like that happen before.

Sure glad that the bottle wasn't leaking all night, would have had the first GN in orbit and the family would be right along with it!

Learned my lesson! NEVER, store propane in the house, even for a few minutes.

 

[Little6pack]

Dam I better get mine out of the garage..

Glad to hear all is well.
I think the cold makes the propaine less effective somehow.

 

[Snorman]

I keep two propane bottles on hand as we always seem to run out in the middle of grilling some filet mignon.

ROTFL!!! This happened to us on Christmas Day. My wife had a few nice filets that we threw on the grill. I thought the tank was low, and low and behold when I went to check the steaks...the flame was out. Our neighbor (who we get along very well with, I might add) was gone for the day. I scurried over into their backyard, grabbed his tank, finished my steaks and took it back. My darned empty is still sitting on the back porch.
I thought I was the only one dumb enough to do that.

Glad your house is in one piece.
S.

 

[Pronto]

I might be mistaken but I think the regulator hose has to be in the valve for it to pass gass with the valve on. Maybe the person that filled the tank didn't tighten the purge screw enough and it was leaking past it.
Glad you got out of that situation ok.

 

[wiked87gn]

i almost blew the house up, my girlfriend left one of the burners on the stove on for 2 days with the house closed, she did not realize the burner was open but not on, it was just venting fumes into the house, when we came back we smelled the fumes and i went to check things out saw the damn valve open but the top burner was not on, when i went to turn it off the damn thing ignited for some unknown reason i thing god was looking after us that day and the house did not blow up, scared the crapp out of me i saw my life flash before my eyes, never again try to close the valve., open the house and after 10 to 15 minutes of ventilation go ahead and close it, things will be safe.

 

[kgouldsk]

I believe the new style connectors have a valve that requires compression to open.

The venting was happening because a gas at low temperature, moved to the warmer garage, expands of course. The relief vent is there for that specific purpose. Unfortunately, there's not a really good solution for bringing them to some sort of equilibrium, unless you can find a way to get them to or above the intended storage temperature, while providing adequate ventilation. The other option would be to put it on the grill and let it run for an hour or so to get some gas used up.

 

[Reaper]

you aint lived will you lost your eye browes(sp) eye lashes and 2 inches of hair in a freak grilling accident!


i am glad everyone is ok.....



Dathan

 

[Quick6'n'-K.C.]

Yeah, what kgouldsk said-

i would hate to have propane in my house, that stuff scares me

next time make sure that its not filled to 100% capacity to allow expansion due to temperature diff-

i fill 100lb bottles at work when i have the chance, that small BBQ grill bottle is enough to level your house

BW

 

[kgouldsk]

Compressed gases even in small quantity are unbelievably dangerous. I used to work on a natural gas pipeline and the guys there had all kinds of stories. I even witnessed some pretty dramatic demonstrations myself.

A friend sent this to me a while back:

http://kgouldsk.dynu.com/oxy.ppt

It's a powerpoint presentation - if it doesn't load, you may need a viewer. This should do it for you:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/OfficeXPProf/Install/4.71.30.1/W98NT42KMe/EN-US/PPVIEW97.EXE

 

[gn85]

Another safety tip that I've experienced first hand. Make sure to check/replace the hoses regularly to those grills/heaters/etc. One summer for the fourth of July BBQ, some friends wanted to fire up a propane grill. The hoses were in pour shape/dryrotted and sure enough leaked propane. Of course nobody noticed the leak, and just concentrated on getting the burners lit. Instead the ignitor lit the leak and gas was burning out of the hose and ironically enough.. right onto the tank. My friends paniced (I was in the bathroom at the time, what a way to go!) and tried to turn the knob off and turned it the wrong way. Nobody was hurt and they managed to turn the gas off before anything happened. But when I came out of the house I saw all my friends ducked and crouched down in various undercover positions. Was actually kinda funny.

So check those hoses.

 

[turbo buicks]

you have an electric garage door opener?

 

[FlyinGN]

It ignited because the electric igniter is at the begining of the on adjustments on the dial. You must go past the igniter if you want to tuns off the gas.. As you went past it, it ignited.

Originally posted by wiked87gn
i almost blew the house up, my girlfriend left one of the burners on the stove on for 2 days with the house closed, she did not realize the burner was open but not on, it was just venting fumes into the house, when we came back we smelled the fumes and i went to check things out saw the damn valve open but the top burner was not on, when i went to turn it off the damn thing ignited for some unknown reason i thing god was looking after us that day and the house did not blow up, scared the crapp out of me i saw my life flash before my eyes, never again try to close the valve., open the house and after 10 to 15 minutes of ventilation go ahead and close it, things will be safe.

 

[TR Custom Parts]

Originally posted by kgouldsk
I believe the new style connectors have a valve that requires compression to open.

The venting was happening because a gas at low temperature, moved to the warmer garage, expands of course. The relief vent is there for that specific purpose. Unfortunately, there's not a really good solution for bringing them to some sort of equilibrium, unless you can find a way to get them to or above the intended storage temperature, while providing adequate ventilation. The other option would be to put it on the grill and let it run for an hour or so to get some gas used up.

Duh on my part! Just remembered that the regulator has to be connected for the gas to release on the new style bottles, fired up the computer this morning and saw your post.

Your theory about the bottle being moved to a higher temp area is probably what happened, outside was about 20 and my garage at the time was around 60. Didn't hear the bottle leaking when I first put it in the garage so once it started warming up that was when it started to vent.

I just shudder to think what might have happened if it was leaking over night.

If you have propane stored in your garage get it out of there NOW! Lesson learned, not quite the hard way, (BOOM) but learned non the less!

 

[Drew L]

new style bottles

The bottle is the same it's the valve that is different. OPD stands for "Overfill Protection Device". The OPD valve has a float inside the bottle which prevents any filler from placing more propane than 80% of the bottle's capacity. Since bottles have been manufactured, they were always designed to carry no more than 80% of total capacity. Although the valves have been around since October 1, 1998, they have not been required until April 1, 2002. What can happen which sounds like what happened here is if the the guy filling the bottle unseated the bleed screw near the valve WHILE filling it is possible to overfill it instead of letting the valve do it's job. With propane's expansion ratio being 740 to 1 it doesn't take much to make a bad situation. The smell is an additive called Mercaptan (sp) to identify leaks just as you did. The older bottles used to free flow with opening the valve and now as stated something has to hooked up to the bottle and when a hose is connected there is a valve in there that only let's a 10% flow instead of a free flow. If you'll now notice the threads are on the outside and the connecting nut is made of plastic. This is designed to melt off in the event of a fire which in turn shuts the bottle off even though the valve is open. Don't leave a bottle in the direct sunlight even in the summer time, don't paint a bottle black as it will absorb sunlight and of course don't leave a propane bottle shut up in a car in the summer. Do any of those and the potential for a similar situation to happen. More information about propane bottles than most cared to know about but there it is!!! Drew

 

[Danster]

If you have propane stored in your garage get it out of there NOW! Lesson learned, not quite the hard way, (BOOM) but learned non the less!

Is this only in area where it's extremely cold, like in your part of the woods? I keep my tank connected to the BBQ grill which is stored in the garage. Should be kept outside instead?

Dannyo

 

[wlaukaitis]

Not that this matters but

A friend of mine's father was a big-wig in the local fire department and his (my friend's) cousin was the "fire inspector". I was told by one of them that all you need is 4 - 14% gas for it to ignite (propane, gasoline vapor's etc.) anything on the low side, too much O2 anything on the high side not enough O2. All that stuff in the movie Backdraft is true. When the dude opens the door and the place explodes, it will happen.

Maybe I am wrong? Any firepeople here??

 

[TR Custom Parts]

Re: new style bottles

Originally posted by Drew L
Don't leave a bottle in the direct sunlight even in the summer time, don't paint a bottle black as it will absorb sunlight and of course don't leave a propane bottle shut up in a car in the summer. Do any of those and the potential for a similar situation to happen. More information about propane bottles than most cared to know about but there it is!!! Drew

Thanks for all the info Drew, interesting.

Now that we are on this subject, just thinking about the guys running propane injection. You have a propane bottle sitting in the trunk of your car, getting hot in the summer when parked outside and what happens if you have a leak and your car is sitting in the garage. Not to knock the propane kit but isn't this a bit unsafe?

 

[Drew L]

The situation people have to aware of concerning propane tanks is the filling or storage of a full tank then moving it to a warmer area. That's the purpose of only filling it to 80% so that in most situations there is enough room within the tank to accomadate expansion. This tank in question was bleeding off as designed which makes me think it was overfull in the first place which is possible in combination to the extremem temperature shift. My personal belief is to not store any flammable liquid or gas outside. I don't see the need to store them inside. "Backdraft" was correct in theory but to much Hollywood.....as usual. The percentages that are referrencesd are what is called Flamable Ranges. Most everything burns differently. Vapors have to be mixed to the proper ratio with the air in order to be ignited. Propane, gasoline vapors and natural gas (methane) have different flammable ranges but for the sake of this discussion they are the area of 4%-10% . Much like like our cars, the mixture must be correct in ordder for it to burn. Propane, because of the mercaptin, is hard to determine how much is present in an enclosed space because that stuff stinks so bad unless one was to use a gas meter. Natural Gas that we use in our homes also has mercaptin added to it. Drew

 

[Vector]

I am really surprised Blown&Injected hasn't weighed in yet.
Filet mignon? BBQ? Either of those are right up his alley. It is likely that he loves grilled meat more than forced induction.

 

[Drew L]

Propane Injection

How big are those bottles? Those may pose a hazard but consider this.........................how about the LPG (liquid propane gas) or LNG (liquid natural gas) POWERED vehicles on todays roads? City busses, fork lifts, skid steer loaders ect. are using this fuel as their primary fuel source. These things are using anywhere from a forty pound bottle to 200 gallon saddle tanks. Now there is something that is a bit dangerous! never mind the 10,000 gallon LNG trucks we almost every day over the road. Drew