Propane, that wonderful stuff

[Ralph L. Fullenwider]

Tom:

Thank you, your right, I had inadvertently dropped a zero, which of course,
changed the equation. Well, that just means that, THAT is one goose egg
that can be cooked in the coach before running out of LP hey?! 11
days is correct.

Safe travels,

Ralph and Charolette Fullenwider
Ralph's RV Solutions, Duncan, Oklahoma
http://home.swbell.net/rlf47/index.htm

At 03:24 PM 1/14/2006 -0500, you wrote:
>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