I saw a woman the other night at Home Depot


 
We have a farmers co-op near here. They charge $13-14 for a full refill. If tank over 10 years old, they inspect and recertify and apply a sticker that is good for 5 more years.
 
JSaus said:
We have a farmers co-op near here. They charge $13-14 for a full refill. If tank over 10 years old, they inspect and recertify and apply a sticker that is good for 5 more years.
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Similar here. I go to a Farmer's Coop. They charge more but never hassle about the tank and can recertify. I'm told by those who've had it done that they don't make a big thing of it. Just look the tank over, slap on a new sticker and charge $5.
 
Dave in KC said:
That would be my guess.
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The only problem with the heating the trailer deal is showing up at 9:15 at night and needing 5 tanks could you not buy 1 wait till the next morning take your 4 nice new tanks and refill them? If your heating by propane in a mobile home I assume thats what Dan meant the ones I have seen have much larger tanks not sure anyone in that situation is buying 20 pound tanks probably go broke pretty fast.
 
JKalchik said:
If you want a full new tank, you buy a new tank, take it to a refill station where they'll purge it and fill it.
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Last time I bought a new tank, it was already purged. Saves you that stupid $5 fee the filling station used to charge for purging a new tank. :D
 
What she did wasn't too smart and has all the earmarks of desperation. Her husband probably sent her out for more propane after they lost power or the furnace went out. They probably needed it to run a propane heater, or even one of those propane generators they have now.
 
I'm not sure I agree that this was a horrible decision. Buying a new tank retail is about $50, and if you shop around you can get it for less.

Here in CA, some of the propane exchange places will sell a full tank without exchange for $57 to $60, and the exchange is about $30.

Assuming the cost to exchange a tank in TX is close to CA, another $20 per tank.

Needing it "now" sometimes requires a premium cost. In this case, $70 per tank, which is higher than a buy a tank from the exchange without trade in, but not that much higher.

Looks like she paid a $15 to $20 premium per tank to walk in with nothing and walk out with five "full" ( aka 80% full ) tanks.

We can guess all day long why she needed them now, but it is what it is. Perhaps they had a restaurant / bar and needed to heat the outside area and someone stole the tanks from their outdoor heaters. Who knows.
 
Cee El said:
So…guys…did she leave with 10 tanks? I’m super-confused. 😂
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The problem the woman had is that she didn't bring any tanks to bring her gas home in. Even if she did, Home Depot does not fill tanks for people on the spot. Instead, they do a tank exchange system where you bring your empty tank, pay about $20, and trade your empty tank in for a full one. In this case, the woman was not able to exchange empty tanks for full ones because she didn't bring any tanks with her.

Home Depot had a special rule for this situation - they charged her extra for new tanks. That is the wrinkle - she paid for five new tanks that she did not get to take home or even see. Think of it as two transactions. First, she bought five tanks to take her gas home. Second, she traded them all in immediately using the tank exchange system and took home five full (but old and used) tanks. Home Depot was able to do this on one receipt.

In an ideal world, she would have purchased new tanks, and gone to a place (not Home Depot) that could fill up her new tanks on the spot. Then she would have paid about the same, gotten roughly the same five tanks of gas, but had beautiful new tanks instead of crusty old recycled ones. Ordinarily this isn't a big deal, but she did everything x5. She also seemed very happy with the transaction despite the guys at Home Depot warning her that this was not the best way if she didn't have tanks.
 
Presuming she needed / wanted the propane that evening and had no tanks to exchange, what other options did she have?
 
Here in Oklahoma the exchanges are a tad over $20. And, you can just get one of the exchange tanks without an exchange for $50 per.

I take my tanks to a local gas station/RV park/propane place. While the exchanges are a bit over $20 per, the fill-up is $18 and it's the full tank, not the 15 pounds you get with each exchange. In fact, when they fill it they open the pressure relief screw and fill it until it comes out of the hole. Much better deal.

I have 2 tanks I use with my grills at home and 2 tanks on my camper. But, the point of having 2 in each place is that when one runs you use the next one and get the empty one filled. They only time I take more than one is when we've been on a long trip in the mountains or something and killed both tanks with the camper furnace.

But, this original post sounds like someone that bought propane heaters for a party and didn't realize they don't have tanks with them.
 
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