Propane, that wonderful stuff

[Tom Warner]

Ralph I think that 36 gallons of LP contains 3,294,072 BTUs as you calculated.

three 16,000 BTU LP furnaces running 25% of the time would
consume 12,000 BTUs/hr

Consumption for 24 hours for the 3 furnaces is 288,000 BTUs.

Divided into 3,294,072 BTUS equals 11.44 days of operation not 5 days
you calculated.

tom warner
1982 FC35
Vernon Center,NY



At 01:53 PM 1/14/2006, you wrote:
>Hi everyone:
>
>Since it is a slow day on the Forum, I thought I might start a little
>thread on LP gas. Ever wondered how long your tank will last during the
>winter months with the LP heaters going?
>
>Interesting facts on that:
>
>1 gal of LP turns out 91,502 of BTU
>
>The ASME tanks on the Birds run about 45 gallons but remember that the
>tanks can only be filled to 80% of capacity so we actually have only 36
>gallons available.
>
>That means:
>36 gallons X 91,502 = 3,294,072 BTU per tank fill
>
>Now then the Lp heaters are usually 16,000 BTU units per heater, so 3
>heaters would use 48,000 BTU per hour.
>
>So 3,294.072 divided by 48,000 = 68.6 hours @ 24/7 100% run time at 70 deg
>F at sea level.
>
>Interesting:
>
>Now we know the heaters don't run 24/7 @ 100 percent so lets say they run
>25 percent of the time. This takes the BTU's used from 68.6 to 120.06 hours
>and that divided by 24 hours comes to, a total of 5 days of continuous
>heater run time. This does not include the refrigerator or cooking BTU's
>demand.
>
>And the colder it get's the fewer BTU's are available as pressure. Lp boils
>at -44 deg F so at sea level on a 100 deg F day the available pressure from
>the tank is 198 psi. then for every 10 F drop in temperature the pressure
>will drop aprox 1.5 percent. So it could actually be that you have 1/4 tank
>showing on the readout but 0 pressure available to feed the heaters or any
>LP appliance. Hmm. if that happens, you can start the gen set and if you
>have a trouble light with a 60 watt bulb and turn it on and lay the trouble
>light inside the LP compartment, the heat from the lamp will actually heat
>the tank to a certain degree and give you more available LP pressure for
>cooking.
>
>I have not read all of the tables on LP so am not sure how altitude would
>be an effect on the BTU rate either.
>
>Just thought this was interesting though. What do you think?
>
>Safe travels,
>
>Ralph and Charolette Fullenwider
>Ralph's RV Solutions, Duncan, Oklahoma
><http://home.swbell.net/rlf47/index.htm>http://home.swbell.net/rlf47/index.htm
>
>
>
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