The OP said that he’s leasing. He doesn’t own the house, so that would limit his ability to do a lot of these suggestions. Mucking with the gas hookups may (in my juristiction) run afoul of all sorts of regulations, and probably won’t make the landlord very happy.
Calling in false gas leaks is probably not a good long term strategy either, with respect to the law or landlord.
They just want a deposit in case you damage anything that belongs to them. What’s the big deal? You’ll get it back.
When we moved into our newly purchased old house, PG & E required, IIRC, a $150 deposit. They were to hold it for a year. Thing was, they never reminded me/us of the ability to request the deposit back after the year had passed. Makes me think that they profit off of forgetful customers.
Somewhere into the second year of living here, I remembered that deposit. Called them up and asked for it to be applied as payment on account. Worked fine. No more deposit in their hands, but like mentioned above, no interest paid on deposit either. THAT really chapped my hide, but, it would’a only been what, $10? Yeah, yeah, $10 times hundreds of thousands of customers equals big bucks. Shame on them.
If the gas company thinks you are full of it they may call the fire dept, to put additional pressure on you not to try this, not a good route to go down.
One thing you can see is if the gas company will give you credit for the unused gas, most will, then you have your answer, let them take it, you get the $ for the gas and you can buy a small bbq tank or 2 that you can refill on your own and use for drying.
I don’t see your beef with the deposit however, you are paying in on the tanks, not the gas or service. $50 for each tank seems reasonable.
Side note, you may want to run that furnace a few times a year just to keep it from seizign up.
Agway for one, and I think most in the area here will. Actually when I switched the gas I bought a year ago at lets say $1/g was then selling for $2/gal and they gave me the $2/ga price back.
If that is the case, why are they not interested in being paid for the gas in the tank?
Not exactly sure what you are asking here. Why should they get paid by you for gas your own already and that you intend on keeping?
The only issue I see is that you are storing your gas in a tank they own - you have no right to their tank (unless it is essential for life as dictated by the PSC - which it doesn’t sound like it applies here). They have requested their tank back - ask them what happens to the gas in that tank, they might buy it back - Again mine did at a higher rate then I paid for it.
My remark about companies buying back gas was in response to this post:
He was arguing that the gas in the tank belonged to the gas company. Do you share this opinion?
Well, then when you hear the firetrucks coming it’s time to blow out the pilot light and let a little bit of gas escape into the room. Big fat I toldya so. The trick is how much gas. We want more than enough to smell, and ideally less than enough to blow the house to smithereens (but even then, he is renting, so no biggie). Big fat lawsuit, you say? Not with a history of repeated calls to the gas company about a leak, which they simply dismissed and left you for dead! Please. We should be suing them.
I realize you all might think this is a little extreme, but I’ll remind you we’re at war. I’m a wartime resident. I make decisions in my house with war on my mind. I read your posts, I hear your complaints. But in the end, I am The Decider. And I say, nuke the bastards!
My understanding is that the gas is yours (or maybe the former renter but that person doesn’t seem to be a player in this - so it’s yours for the purpose of this). The tank is theirs.
My point is that when you nuke the gas seller, make sure you don’t also nuke others who have no stake in your war.
That’s why before going to war, I took the crucial step of assembling a Coalition of the Willing: me, myself, and i. And if you’re not with us, you’re against us.
Just admit it, kanicbird, you hate us for our freedom, you Godless Communist!
I think it might actually be very likely. What probably happened is the tanks were filled and paid for by the old tenant, but when they moved out they got a refund. Presuming the gas company is regulated by the PUC then I find this to be a far more likely scenario than the one where they don’t refund the money.
I suggest you find for certain whether that gas is already paid for or not.
Then I will pose the same question to you that I directed at kanicbird: If the gas company owns the gas in the tank, why have they shown no interest in billing me for it for over seven months?
I have no idea. But if I was a betting man, I would bet that you do not own the gas in the tanks and that the reason they haven’t billed you is because of some sort of oversight on their part. They probably would have turned off the tanks earlier but just didn’t get to it, much like when you move into an apartment and are getting free cable because they haven’t shut it off from the previous tenant.
Just find out if you ever really owned the gas in the first place and pay the deposit on the tanks.
There is a difference between a supplier of Natural gas and propane.
With natural gas, the gas you use is metered as you use it.
With propane, the amount is measured as they deliver it. They fill your tanks, measure the amount that required, and then bill you for that amount. End of transaction.
There is no way the propane supplier could have refunded money to the previous owner for unused gas. They probably did refund the tenant’s deposit, but there is no way for the propane company to know how much, if any, propane is in the tank without visiting the site and measuring it (and, presumably, if they were to refund for it, it would not still be in the tank.)
I have never heard of propane companies buying back unused product.
If I was a betting man, I would take that wager. They were entirely aware that we were new tenants in October. When we moved in, we had a rather animated discussion about the deposit, and I was told if I didn’t pay the deposit, they would not deliver gas. I accepted those conditions. This nonsense about turning off the gas is a new wrinkle that has nothing to do with payment for the gas remaining in the tanks, it is apparently solely about the deposit not being paid. If there was an oversight about paying for the gas in the tanks, they have yet to correct it, even though they are threatening to turn off the gas they forgot to bill me for. Does that make sense to you?
First off, you should just shut up and pay the damn deposit. It’s not uncommon for utilities to request one, and it makes sense if you’re renting something valuable (a propane tank) from them.
Second, if you won’t do that… You can always use up all the propane in the tank. Maybe buy or borrow a big burner (like this 2,000,000 BTU one), kick back in a lawn chair with a beer, and shoot an enormous geiser of beautiful spiteflame in the air.
Why is it that people think the name Zabali is male? Or is it that somehow my ideas seem to be “male” ways of thinking? 
My take on it is if gender is unknown assume the masculine.