Not so. Real men wake up early and in an effort to make coffee before everyone else wakes up attempt to use white gas in our buddy’s new camp stove (that we’ve never used before), end up setting fire to the top of the picnic table, and burning the brim of said buddy’s new safari hat and later allow him to believe that he somehow singed it himself at the campfire the night before… then, having figured out the new camp stove, follow the tracks that the raccoons who stole the powdered doughnuts you forgot and left on the top of the cooler last night (but at least they left the last of the tequila!) left into the bushes for a ways before giving up and heading back to camp where we drink coffee, take a couple of bong hits, and make omlettes before waking the rest of the campers up.
When we need ours exchanged, my husband and I go to the place (usually a Circle K) he goes in and I wait with the tank outside.
He went by himself once because I was out of town. He parked near the propane tank holder, got the used tank out when the guy came out and then put the new one in the car and went in to pay for it.
I have never seen this as a big deal and/or problem as almost every gas station has a tank exchange and there is usually parking within a few spaces.
I’d think someone with as much on the ball as Scylla would make inquiries at the store while there on a non-propane-related errand.
And I’d expect someone who has a tricked-out La-Z-Boy with built-in refrigerated beer cooler would have got his back yard plumbed for natural gas.
Nope, real men use a 2 or 3 burner Coleman that they fill up by siphoning gas from their car.
A real man wants to be able to cook his bacon and eggs while his coffee stays hot.
Zeriel, Ferret Herder Propane, taste the fuel not the food. :rolleyes:
If I wanted my food steamed, I put it in a steamer.
Simple. Put the coffee in the radiator, fry the bacon on the valve covers, and cook the eggs on top of the air cleaner.
With the exchange places you can never be sure if the tank you’re getting is worth a damn or how much propane is really in it.
If there’s a place near you that sells high-end grills and patio furniture, they will either fill tanks themselves or they’ll be able to tell you who does. Old-school hardware stores often will. Make sure they put the tank on a scale so that the amount of propane they say they’re selling you is actually what you’re getting.
(Real grill nuts have a gas grill, a charcoal grill, and a smoker, at a minimum. Life is too short to have one grill.)
Real men eat it raw. Whatever it is.
Heh. In the UK Calorgas basically control the entire market for Propane (aka patio gas). They have a website where you tell them what size cylinder you want, whether you have an empty to exchange, and your address and credit card number. Then they send a blokie round from their local franchisee to make the switch. You don’t even need to be there. Come home from work and find the gas pixie has left a nice full cylinder on your doorstep for you. 
Around here I can exchange propane tanks at Lowe’s and Home Despot the way WhyNot described. I did this to get rid of a couple older tanks. What I usually do is take the empty tanks (always have a spare!) to the local propane dealer to get 'em filled. It’s cheaper.
This is the real crime in these exchanges, no credit for giving them a brand spanking new cylinder.
You can get them filled, you really have to look around in your area, though. I don’t think there are any national chains to rely on, and the exchange services are probably sucking up a lot of the business, so you may have to travel a ways to a refill location.
I take my tank to a “gas supplier”. They sell all sorts of gases from oxygen for home medical needs to acetylene for welding. They have a big propane tank in the back. They told me to never bring the tank indoors and to take it back outside and drop it off near the big tank. The place wasn’t exactly bustling with people and I could see out the windows so theft didn’t seem like a problem.
I am also familiar with welding suppliers. They will often recharge fire extinguishers and sell different gasses including propane.
Both of these types of places are kind of industrial in nature, but are perfectly willing to sell to the consumer market as well.
How much does it cost to exchange a tank? I noticed a couple of years ago, but since I grill with charcoal I didn’t store it in long-term memory. Also, how much does propane cost if you refill? ISTM that propane for my heater, which is stored in a 124 gallon tank, is up around $2/gallons now. When I happened to notice the cage-o-tanx I think I was paying about $1.60/gallon and the exchange was something like $30 or $40 for five gallons.
Last time I filled my 20# tank, which with the OPD valve now holds 17# of propane, it was about $13. This is in Eastern MO and about 3 months ago. YMMV of course. I seem to remember that the last time I looked at one of the exchange places it was just shy of $20.
Commercial campgrounds (e.g. KOA) are a pretty sure bet for propane refill service, and they tend to be open 7 days a week, with extended hours…for this reason I have often ended up there when the closer and slightly cheaper places were either closed, or the one employee at hand was not trained to fill cylinders.
And still warm.
All I know is, under no circumstances are you supposed to bring the canister inside the convenience store.
Maybe it’s just because my area has a lot of RVs and campers, but many gas stations here do propane refills.
All right, I really need to go back to bed. Or I need an IV caffeine drip. Or something.
I saw the thread title and figured it was going to be something along the lines of the Doper Shotglass Exchange… and isn’t mailing propane dangerous and probably illegal?
On reflection, I think I came to that conclusion because our grill runs off a gas line from the house – no tank.
“Taste the meat, not the heat.”
No they don’t. Real real men do indeed use propane - they just use it with an infra-red grill. There’s even a portable model. 1500 degrees of seared-meaty goodness.
Tried it. The exhaust manifold gets hot enough to cook bacon with the side benefit of increasing your iron intake, but the air cleaner just does not get hot enough to fry and egg.