The new five-burner gas grill should arrive Monday. I’ve never used a gas grill, being a ‘charcoal purist’; but a new deck and roof means we’ll be spending more time outside, and more outdoor cooking. A gas grill will be much more convenient.
So here’s the thing: I need a propane cylinder. I can buy one and have it filled at any gas station, or I can by an ‘exchangeable’ one and swap it out at the Rhino cage at the gas corner gas station. I think the exchange will be more expensive than just filling my own tank. OTOH, I understand that propane tanks may only be filled for 12 years from their data of manufacture. I read one review on Amazon where a guy bought a new tank that had been manufactured nine years previously. I would find that irksome.
So the poll is this: Given that you are going to need a propane tank, you have two options: Buy one to refill, or buy an exchange tank. Which do you choose?
Additional (non-poll) question: How long does a cylinder of propane last?
I can remember when buying a tank and taking it to the propane dealer for filling was the way to go. Now, though, even the propane dealers have a Blue Rhino box out front. That’s the cheapest way now, and the one-fill-at-a-time guys couldn’t beat the rentals’ price.
Besides that, you never have to worry about a rental tank getting badly rusted or bent.
We’ve had our own tank for 13 years now, and it’s finally expired. I think we’re going to go with the exchangeable ones next. It’s always a pain to get ours filled, especially if the store happens to be busy at the time, because the clerk has to go out, unlock the propane shed door, fill it up, then we have to go inside, pay for it, etc. etc. At least a 10-15 minute turnaround even without a wait.
Just grabbing a new one and doing an swap seems a lot easier, even if it is a couple dollars more. We don’t go through so much propane that the extra cost is an issue.
What is easier for you to do? If there are exchange place(s) close by then a swap and go seems like a no brainer. If you have a near by fill and go then go for it. Make life easy, this expense is minor in life’s greater issues, so make it easy even if it cost more, it’s still less than the hassle of a rushed refill or going without.
That reminds me… We went to Sears to pick up the new washer and dryer Sunday, and there was a Blue Rhino cage out front. It was empty. Someone had cut a flap out of the metal mesh big enough to remove the cylinders.
I’m confused between your options.
IME, either way you’re going to lay out money to get your hands on the first tank. After that the question is do you fill it or exchange it, right? Just do what ever is cheaper and/or more convenient (just make sure that pound for pound they’re filled the same).
Also, get two tanks. When you run out while you’re grilling, and you will, it’s a lot easier to put the second tank on than to say ‘I’ll be back in 10 minutes’ while you run to the gas station. Then, after the second tank is on, you can fill/exchange the empty tank when you have time.
I own two. A tank lasts me for years, because 9 out of ten times the only thing I use my gas grill for is to use the side burner to light my charcoal chimney or to give a quick sear to sous vide meat.
I do have two tanks, because here in coastal North Carolina a hurricane may knock out the power to my freezer for days, necessitating a barbecue to end all barbecues.
That’s worth considering. We have a 3 kW generator that can run the refrigerator (and, more importantly, the coffee pot and television, cable, and Internet while the cable company’s back-up battery holds out). But the stove is another matter. We lost power for three days last year, and the side burner would have been very handy.
You don’t have to do one or the other, you know- you kind of end up doing both anyway.
When you go to an Amerigas or Blue Rhino place, you’re effectively buying a cylinder and fill of propane. That’s why it costs like $60 up-front, and only like $15-17 to swap an empty tank out for a full one. But you can get propane places to refill those tanks- just take that plastic shrink-wrap off, and have them refill it for like $12. I’ve done it many times. Then, after a few years, when your tank is about to age out, swap it for a new one at the Blue Rhino cage near you, and then get it refilled for cheap for another dozen years.
I haven’t noticed any real difference in time or PITA-ness between swapping the cylinders vs. refilling them- both require you to go pester some guy in the shop to come out and do something- refill or open the cage, and then you still have to go in and pay. The one thing I will say is that I’m pretty sure the tank-swap outfits short-load their cylinders with like 15 lbs of propane, not the full 20 that they can hold if done by a guy with a scale.
On my grill (older Weber Spirit 300), a full cylinder lasts me for several months of grilling probably a little less than once a week during the summer.
Blue Rhino all the way. The exchange points are freaking everywhere these days. Just in my smallish town there must be at least 25 different places that are Blue Rhino dealers. exchange also takes a lot less time: Go into Walgreens, pay for a swap, go outside with the guy. Hand him the old tank, he hands you the new one. Takes all of 3 minutes.
To address Joey P’s point - don’t bother with a second tank. Just pick up a couple of lamp cylinders as backup. If you keep an eye on the gauge, you’ll never need them, but if your tank goes dry mid-meal you can just swap out the camping cylinder and finish the meal without shelling out an additional mass of money for a spare tank.
This is what I do. “I’ll be back in ten minutes” is an underestimate; it’s likely to be at least twenty minutes, during which time the quality of your half-cooked food (which may have already been cooling for some time before you noticed the fire was out) has been steadily deteriorating.
A tank of propane is cheap enough to justify the convenience of having a second one immediately available, and allows you to get the fire going again in two minutes instead of twenty.
And fergodsake, do NOT store the spare tank of propane in your garage or house; a leaky can of spray paint dispersed throughout your entire garage/basement won’t level the building, but a leaky 20-pound propane tank definitely will, so it should only ever be stored outside.
Here in North Georgia the cost of a propane refill is about 2/3 the cost of exchange. For me, a few refills will pay for the initial cost of the propane cylinder.
And a refill is no more of a hassle than an exchange. Yes it takes a bit longer but so what?
Hence the poll. Just looking online, a Blue Rhino tank costs $15 or $16. An pre-purged owned tank costs $25 to $30. You’re paying more for propane (which may be short) with the exchange.
You can exchange the tanks at Home Depot without bothering anyone. You can run the whole think from a kiosk outside, and a door opens automatically in the cage, you take the new one out, and put your old one in. Pretty easy, even when they are closed.
This is more or less what I do, except that for me, the key is convenience instead of cheap propane. I live in a slightly out-of-the-way town in the middle of several lakes and reservoirs. I can get out onto a state road to a Home Depot where I can swap out a propane tank in about 25 minutes. Or, I can drive about 5 minutes to the hardware store in town that fills tanks but doesn’t swap them out. The hardware store is a few dollars more expensive than the HD, but there’s not enough difference to make it worth the longer trip, in my estimation. So I regularly get my propane tank filled locally, and when it starts to get old and rusty, I bring it to the HD and swap it out for a newer one.
This must be a regional thing: it doesn’t happen around here. Around here there are lots of places you can do exchanges–but few places you can have your own refilled.
Not at mine. I still have to leave the damn things out there, go inside, wait in line, tell them that I want to swap tanks, pay for the tanks, then wait for some listless cashier to shamble outside and unlock the cage, and swap the tanks out.
Which isn’t materially different than going to the U-Haul locations near work or home, and telling them that I need propane, and meeting the guy out by the big tank, waiting for him to fill it up, and then taking it in with a slip recording the exact lbs of propane, and paying. The only real difference is that the propane fill method is slightly cheaper overall, and gives me slightly more propane per cylinder (a real 20 lbs, as opposed to 15-17 like Blue Rhino or Amerigas).
So in terms of cost, you’re looking at $18.75 for a full fill-up of 4.7 gallons/20 lbs of propane, vs 19.97 for a 17 lb swap at Home Depot. The math seems easy if the convenience is equal.
You can usually get them refilled anywhere that RVs get their propane tanks refilled. A lot of U-Haul places have refilling hardware, as do most RV parks and in more rural areas, so do gas stations.
