Propane: Spice and I are huge proponents of propane due to it’s stability and the virtually limitless storage life of the gas.
A fuel made for prepping
Propane is a safe fuel that can be stored indefinitely, which makes it a perfect option for preppers.
When most people think about propane, they think about the typical 20 pound gas bottle sitting there under their gas grill out on the back porch (or, in our case, on our front porch).
And then, of course, there’s the ubiquitous 500 or 1000 gallon propane tanks in the back yard that can keep emergency heat levels going for months.
A stock of 20 lb propane tanks is a portable, flexible fuel solution
As we mentioned in our 3 Fuels article recently, many people already own one or two of these to power the backyard grill. It is a great cooking prep, since nearly anything can be cooked on it, and it’s even a stealth prep. Who thinks anything odd about having a backyard grill?
Power your grill or your portable heater. Store tanks as long as you like; it doesn’t go bad as gas does.
Having extra bottles makes this fuel prep more powerful. Please don’t store the spare bottles in the basement, though. Propane’s heavier than air, so if a valve gets cracked open or a leak develops, it can fill an entire basement with toxic and explosive gas. Be it suffocating someone going downstairs or catching a spark and making a Big Bang, there’s no good ending to that story.
You can also get little heaters that run off of these bottles. We have one for The Place, in fact. I wouldn’t feel as comfortable sleeping with one of those running as I feel with the ventless heater designed for that purpose, but I’m glad to have it around. If it makes you nervous you can always warm the place up before sleeping.
Lots Of Mom & Pop Propane Outfits
Most areas have a gas supplier that handles tanks for a variety of purposes: acetylene and oxygen for welders, compressed air for tools and scuba divers, carbon dioxide for dry ice production, etc. These places can usually fill propane tanks while you wait. Why not just exchange at retail outlets? The gas fill places give you a more generous fill; the exchange tanks are usually only 75 or 80% full capacity.
According to the National Propane Gas Association (NPGA), of the 3,000 propane companies throughout the United States, more than 70 percent are independent, family-owned businesses, employing more than 80,000 people. Local businesses are the primary drivers of growth and jobs in America. Support for these local propane businesses is essential to the future economic health and stability of the United States.
Propane where you least expect it
Most people, if they think about propane at all, think only about the outdoor grill, or perhaps those camping grills with the little bitty propane bottles (more on those later), or for rural folks propane stove/ovens in the kitchen, water heaters and propane central heating units. Folks at sea think of sailboat heaters, and of course campers and RV’s use propane for a lot of things.
According to stats from the NPGA, 7.8 million households use propane for, in-home heating. 4.6 million homes use propane for water heating and more than 42 million homes use propane for outdoor grilling activities.
What this means is that there’s both a lot of propane bottles out there, and there’s also a massive national distribution network for them. You can find propane 20lb bottle exchanges in even some of the smallest towns in America (my tiny town, for example, has 5 different places that stock refills, plus two places you can refill your own, and three different distributors for filling 500 gallon (and up) tanks.
Down on the farm
People unfamiliar with agriculture might be surprised how much propane is used on the modern midwestern farm.
In many cases, the single largest fuel cost on a farm is for propane used to dry down corn. The next time you are driving through a rural area, take a good look at some grain bins as you pass them and see if you notice several 1000 gallon tanks sitting next to them. This is for their grain drying system. The process of drying grain is VERY expensive, and choosing what grain to dry and to what level is WAY beyond the scope of this article and (frankly) it has absolutely nothing to do with prepping, so I will leave it at that.
Why do I even mention it? Because gas can be transferred between big 1000 gallon storage tanks and our little 20lb tanks, and it’s important to know where preppers might be able to go to barter some resources. Note I said BARTER, not STEAL. Stealing propane from somebody’s big tanks in an emergency is both immoral and a really, really good way to get yourself dead from a gunshot wound.
How do you transfer from a big tank to small? Well… I’ve done it, but I’m not going to share how because frankly unless you really, really know what you are doing you can get hurt/killed and frankly, I’m not going to be a part of that. The information and materials are out there on the web if you want to find out how.
What about those little 1lb green bottles for camp stoves?
Those little green bottles are the single most expensive way to use propane, and unless you are REALLY tight on space, I don’t recommend using them at all.
Instead, buy a conversion kit so that you can use 20lb bottles right on your stove/heater/whatever.
Are propane and natural gas the same thing?
No, they are entirely different… even though they are often used for similar roles.
Natural Gas is methane based, wheres propane is… well… propane.
Propane is a lot more efficient than natural gas so you get a lot more energy out of a gallon of propane than you would a gallon of natural gas. In fact, you get more than double the BTU energy out of propane than natural gas (1030 for natural gas to 2490 for propane) (EDITED… I originally had the numbers reversed).
The biggest advantage that natural gas has over propane is that it is easily deliverable to your house via a community-wide piping system. While that’s a really good thing in normal times, it’s a big weakness if the Stuff Hits The Fan (SHTF) when portability and self-reliance become a lot more important.
Propane generators – a good idea?
I’m going to give a caveat here… I’ve never had good luck with propane generators, every one of them I’ve been around has been fidgety and difficult to maintain.
Having said that, high-end propane generators, in conjunction with large-capacity (1000 gallon) tanks can keep a home/business up-and-running for a LONG time, so they are definitely a consideration.
I’ve (Salty) just not had good experiences with the smaller, home based propane generators
How much propane should I store?
Like anything prepper related, this is something only you can decide, based upon your budget, your ability to store the bottles out of the weather, your environment (i.e. do you live where there is extended cold for months at a time), etc.
Salty & Spice have a 500 gallon tank that we keep topped off for use by our emergency no-electricity-required heating system, and we keep 7 20lb bottles of gas on hand for cooking/supplemental heating.
Since propane will store basically indefinitely if you keep the containers from rusting, I personally would encourage everybody to stock up to their limit on 20lb bottles. It’s a great prep.
I am in the second year in my new house with a whole house (15kw) Cummings propane generator running off a 1000lb tank. It runs like a champ! My wife and I consider it the best decision we made about our house. The generator consumes about a pound an hour on a light load.
Word of caution. A 1000 lb tank really only holds 800 lbs even though there is a 0-100% Guage on it. I’m thinking hard on getting a second tank.
Bottom line: a quality propane generator is worth the cost.
Thanks for the reply. I think with propane generators the key is to get a good, high quality large one like the one you have installed and avoid the cheaper portables. I appreciate your input!
We live way out in the country, have a driveway almost a mile long, and we’re on the very end of the power liine. After an ice storm left us confined for a week, we decided to get an emergency whole house generator. We got a 20kw Generac propane fueled system, and a 1000 gal propane tank. It has worked well for the last 10 years, and it gets used 3-4 times a year due to power outages.
One of our better investments.
Thanks for the comment. When we looked at getting power at “the place” the guy from the power company said something we had already figured out… “Just realize you will be the first people to lose power with every storm, and the last people to get it back on…” because the place is at the very end of the line. In fact, the line goes one house beyond our place and that’s that.
Good article Salty.
One correction you might make; “In fact, you get more than double the BTU energy out of propane than natural gas (1030 for propane to 2490 for natural gas).”
think you have the BTU rating reversed.
I do have several/many portable tanks ranging from 20 to the 100 pounders, find them cheap at garage sales and junk stores. I do recommend getting the valves replaced, most refill companies will replace at no labor cost, and just charge for the valve.
Also have a 1000 tank for the home…..
Good catch, sorry about that, I reversed the numbers… I’ve fixed it now, thanks!
interesting / I will research this as I had no idea