2 questions re: propane tank and new furnace

[Dedicated_Dad]

DD, it has nothing to do with being a "jerk" - you paid the lease for 20 years, you were probably locked in to him as a supplier(were you?) meaning you probably paid more for LP than the going rate...

Tank came with the house when we bought it 10+ years ago - we were locked to supplier because they owned the tank and I didn't want to spend the $$ to get a new one installed. I didn't pay any extra for the tank, but had to pay their price (which seems to be in line with others in market) for the gas.

'Round here it's sort of backwards - they don't charge you more to use their tank but will give you a discount of some sort if you own the tank. Yeah, I know, but that's how it "is"...

Otherwise you're spot-on. I know where you're coming from, but it's a small "town" (rural area) and I'm fairly well known. Everything else aside, it's important to me that if he was to go 'round running his mouth, anyone in earshot would know I made a fair offer and wasn't the one being a jerk in the situation.

BTW - he did call me back later and offer me $0.20/gal discount if I stayed with them. Too little/too late for me - not after everything else...

Given that I've wasted ~$30k+ worth of propane in 10 years, given that his people "lit" my furnace at least a dozen times and never noticed 1/2 the burners weren't lighting, given that I've had them out here trying to find the source of a smell many times, given that even THEY admit we've always used 40-50% more than previous owners...

Given all of that history and they never - not ONCE - suggested I should have my furnace checked out...??!!

I'll say it: I'm an idiot for not coming to the same conclusion - I'm aware of this fact - but then I'm not in that business. The problem has existed from the day we bought the house, so I really just never thought of it...

Anyway, with all of those things considered, it's unconscionable to me that he doesn't say "I'm really sorry. I understand why you're upset. Just keep the tank - it's the least I can do under the circumstances."

That's what *I* would do if our roles were reversed, but then "that's just how *I* roll."

As it is, I want to make the man an offer that - if that's all the info they're given - anyone with any sense would agree was fair.

Sounds to me like that's $500, so I think that's what I'm going to do, unless someone tells me it's too LOW for some reason.

Otherwise, if I'm going to pay the price of a new tank, I'm going to GET a new tank, and increase capacity in the process. This alone will save me $$ in a couple of years, and support a generator and gas HW-heater as well.

On THAT note: My calculations tell me that it should run the new furnace and pool for a year, when the current electric HW heater goes I'm planning to switch to a gas "on demand" setup, and the generator is still on the wish-list if I can get back to work someday...

Given the super-high-efficiency furnace, pool heater, and gas HW, does it seem like 1000 gallons is adequate? Would it be prudent to go with an even larger tank?? My "new" gas supplier has assured me that - in the event of an extended power outage (like another "flood" - we've had three week-long outages in 10 years due to low-lying houses getting flooded even though we were still high-and-dry...) they could easily keep me supplied. He says their "tank farm" is grid-independent - they can continue running for over a month without electricity, and meet their high-end demand projections for at least that long without LPG delivery... In any sort of "emergency" I would immediately ask for a "top-off" but this doesn't account for any true "SHTF" sort of event...

SHTF planning is always a thought, but I'm planning to sell in 4-5 years so it would only really matter to me if I thought I could recover the cost through an additional "selling point." I feel like this rural, waterfront home will be very attractive to the right buyer, especially with the LPG-powered genny and all, I'm just not sure that LPG capacity over 1k/gal is going to make a difference... Any reasons you can see to add capacity in excess of 1k gal?

DD

[Dedicated_Dad]

Oh -

I've been refilling the little "disposable" bottles from my bbq tank for YEARS. Talk about saving $$... People always wonder why I want their empties, and can't seem to grasp when I tell them the truth...

Cost me $9 at horror-freight...

DD

[Netpackrat]

Oh -

I've been refilling the little "disposable" bottles from my bbq tank for YEARS. Talk about saving $$... People always wonder why I want their empties, and can't seem to grasp when I tell them the truth...

Cost me $9 at horror-freight...

DD

I read someplace that it is against DOT regs to transport those things if they have been refilled, FYI.

[HTRN]

Yup. Also, they don't last too long - the rubber seals aren't really meant to last more than a half dozen cycles.

I see where your coming from DD - It's a small town and the only thing that travels faster than light is small town gossip. And yeah, If I had been in his place, I would have "sold" you the tank for a buck, after acknowledging my screwup AND offering the discount. Part of being a business is being responsible to your customers, and making your mistakes right.

As for the tanks.. I don't think you can get a larger residential installation than a 1K gallon tank. If you need more, you get another tank and pipe the vapor fittings together before they hit the regulator. Some more high tech methods involve sensors, solenoids and switching from one tank to another, but that is neither here nor there. Personally, if it's a case of "fill once a year with a 1K tank", simply fill it twice a year, so that no matter what, it's always at least half filled - 400 gallons goes a LONG way with a resonably sized genset(I think that a 14Kw Generac burns about a gallon and a half an hour) and you can always get an emergency delivery.

Switching to a tankless heater is a good way to save money - they last damn near forever, and they typically use half as much gas as tank heater. Another way to save money involves central air - if you have it, instead of rejecting the waste heat into the air, you can do some minor plumbing of the outside unit, and use the waste heat to heat your pool. You're already paying to extract heat from the house, might as well use it for something instead of "throwing it away". It will be that much less you have to pay by using the pool heater.


HTRN

[Dedicated_Dad]

All good advice.

I'm planning on going with a heat-pump when my AC goes - the new furnace has all the logic to run "dual-fuel" and calculate the most cost-effective heating. I'm seriously considering a setup that pulls water from my well to provide cooling - the return would just run into the ditch and thence to the river.

NOTE: before anyone gets up-in-arms about "wasting water" - I live on an artesian aquifer - water comes out of the top of my well-head when things are extra-wet and the tide is high. My next-door neighbor literally has a stream running from his well to the river 24/7/365. This didn't stop even during the "drought" we had a few years ago... Considering the water-table is about 2' deep in my yard, and I'm on the highest point around (~8.5' above mean-high-tide) I'd be doing nothing to harm anything or anyone.

The point about using the excess heat for the pool is a good one - if I'd been able to take the time and do it "right" (IOW if my furnace hadn't gone up in the middle of a freeze-snap) I'd have gone with a system that would solve all of my problems...

It's a "heat pump" rig, running on the well-water as described above. To handle heat in winter, cooling in summer, domestic HW and the pool would have run me about $10k, and the only moving (read:"wear) parts in the whole system are a water pump and a blower motor. The "inventor" has kept his "prototype" running in his home since 1972, and in 36 years has only needed to replace the aforementioned pump and blower motors which are off-the-shelf, non-proprietary components. His total energy costs are under $1k/year even today, for a house bigger than mine in a place with colder winters and equivalent summers. Given how much better my place is insulated and constructed I should use even less, and given how expensive LPG and electricity have become here my ROI should be just a few years with the rest of the system's life being free money in the bank.

I'm still considering this - I could keep the new furnace as a "backup" and use its blower setup, or remove it and recoup much of what I paid (given I paid ~1/2 retail)... I could easily get $5k for the new furnace and the new high-end pool boiler I replaced last year... The system never draws more than 15 amps, so I could easily run it all with my planned Generac propane generator if we had another power-outage as well...

If I DID go with the on-demand water heater, would you recommend a whole-house setup or the little individual units in each bathroom/kitchen? I can see the benefits of both, but don't know enough about it to judge which makes more sense... The big drawback I see to the "single" unit is that it takes a while for the water to get from the heater to the bathroom, and this hot water is wasted when the spigot is turned off... There's also the question of capacity - can it support 2 showers and washer/dishwasher/kitchen/etc at the same time??

Thanks again!!

DD