Propane tank inside is it safe?

Cassie1218

my boyfriend is installing my vent free wall mounter gas heater tonight but doesn’t have what he needs to run the line outside so he’s wanting to leave the propane tank inside about 4 feet from the heater until he gets the right connector. Is it safe?

Larry Weingarten

Hi @Cassie1218, I'd find ANY other form of heat in the meantime to keep things warm. There simply is too much risk in having a propane tank indoors. I'm also pretty sure few on this board will like the idea of a vent free heater either. I'd be installing low level carbon monoxide detectors.

Yours, Larry

EdTheHeaterMan

LP tanks can not be stored indoors. If they could, do you think that Home Depot, Tractor Supply and Lowes would spend all the extra money on those outdoor locking cages if they could just store. them indoors?

It is a fire hazard and against the law to store that tank inside your home.

mattmia2

you don't want it inside if the safety valve blows off for some reason

Mad Dog_2

NO!!! Good on ya for picking up on that. Mad Dog

JUGHNE

You want it outside as noted above. Get a good electric heater for temporary use.

Now with all of this said, I just want to say how dangerously, about 50 years ago, I lived for over 3 years, on a Greek island.

We and most of the population had a propane tank in the kitchen next to the range, (a German "Junker", hell of a name but really good quality).

We then heated the house with Aladdin kerosene unvented heaters with extra fuel stored on the porch. A lot of air exchanges with leaky windows.

So this is a Grandpa saying "Do as we say….not as I did….in a almost third world country".

Ironman

Absolutely not!!

You could blow yourselves up!

mattmia2

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1828371#Comment_1828371

There was never an official public report but it sounds like this is what happened when a house on the west side of Ann Arbor blew up a year or 2 ago. They had some sort of dispute with the gas utility and were heating with propane tanks before the house blew up.

jimna01

The propane tank inside is a really bad idea and so is an unvented gas heater . Unvented gas heaters are now illegal in many jurisdictions. When operating normally they consume oxygen, emit CO2 and various nitrogen oxides which can aggravate asthma or asthma like symptoms ( I know personally from sitting in the living room of my mother in laws house with a ventless fireplace in fairly tight constructed home ). Operating improperly you can add CO to the mix. When I redid my kitchen I installed a gas cook top and electric ovens to mitigate these gases and also installed a 400 CFM range hood with exterior exhaust. I have had no symptoms with that setup .

109A_5

1983 Buffalo propane explosion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Buffalo_propane_explosion

DCContrarian

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1828534#Comment_1828534

That was a 500-gallon propane tank. It was being moved by a forklift while full, fell off and sprung a leak. That's a much more extreme situation.

Let me ask this, because it's closer I think to the OP's question. Is having a 20 pound propane tank inside the house more dangerous in any meaningful way than having, say, a five gallon can of gasoline? Or a 275 gallon tank of fuel oil? Or natural gas piping that might be 120 years old?

I can't say that it is.

pecmsg

if there were a fire YES! The fire department will shut off the gas outside as well as electric before entering.
there going to be pissed if a 20# bottle of LP let’s go!

Jamie Hall

Oh dear, @DCContrarian ! Yes, the propane tank is considerably riskier than the 275 gallon oil tank. The 5 gallon gasoline can — which also should never be stored in an occupied space — is somewhat less hazardous. The old natural gas piping, assuming it has been leak checked more recently than 120 years, is also much less of a hazard (Is there any natural gas that is 120 years old???)

Let's consider why. First, the oil tank. While an oil tank will make a nasty mess if it leaks, it will not explode even if it is heated. Those of us who run diesel equipment will happily confirm that fuel oil is surprisingly hard to ignite. Second, the gasoline can. Gasoline can and does vapourize. Unless the cap is really tight and the vents closed, the vapours which are much heavier than air) will move across whatever floor is handy and will find an ignition source. The resulting fire will be spectacular, but will not (bar exceptional circumstances) be an explosive one. If the gasoline can is exposed to fire, the gasoline will vapourize very quickly (unlike fuel oil) and contribute to the merriment, but not explode unless further confined. The propane tank, however, poses a hazard even if it is well sealed. If we assume that the valve is tightly closed and does not leak, it's fine — unless it is exposed to excessive heat, particularly even a relatively mild fire. Then you entirely dependent on the safety disc bursting and the resulting pressure release being adequate to prevent the tank rupturing, but not so great as to drop the pressure below the current temperature of the liquid propane — and that the torch from the safety disc is pointed somewhere safe. If the heat input to the propane tank is rapid enough, however, the pressure inside will continue to build and the tank wall weaken — to the point where the tank wall fails and the interior pressure drops to zero, at which point all the remaining liquid propane in the tank boils, and you get a small (relatively speaking) BLEVE — boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion. A standard small barbecue tank is more or less as powerful as a standard 250 pound bomb… and, in fact, such tanks have been used — with some simple but ingenious tweaking which I won't detail for obvious reasons — as excellent, easily available, cheap, bombs.

I'll grant that a leaking natural gas line is a real hazard, and will blow up your whole house (the whole block, if you do it right), but you really should smell it before it's a problem.

Larry Weingarten

Hi, Would you rather live with rattlesnakes, scorpions, or alligators in your house? I'm thinking it might be the wrong question. 😜

Yours, Larry