Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark of SJC
... in December in the cold (no snow, but it was that cold). Had a fire pit hooked up to a standard LP tank used for BBQs. Opening the LP tank valve and lighting the fire in a few minutes the fire pit pressure regulator would frost over...then the entire hose would freeze...then no flow! <snip>...So what was happening? (and should we be concerned?)
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The propane has to 'boil' to create the gas that we use. It boils at -44°F. When you draw off the gas, you drive down the temperature in the tank from decompression, and that happens pretty fast when something is using a lot of fuel. Ordinarily, there's enough warmth in the surrounding air to keep the tank warm enough so the liquid propane keeps boiling, and therefore generating gas. If you are running your furnace inside and happen to be outside, you can feel the tank in use is ice cold.
But when the weather is cold, the heat from the environment doesn't soak into the fluid fast enough to keep the boiling happening. So the gas pressure goes way down, way fast. This is what you saw happening. It's nothing to be concerned about.
A different, but fun, real-world example: My very good friend is a club officer at
Train Mountain in Oregon. Train Mountain has over 20 miles of mainline track (not counting sidings and branches) and the trains are ride-on size. There are a large number of Live Steam enthusiasts, and they depend on propane for fuel. Keeping their engines running in cold weather is a real exercise in swapping out mostly full but frozen tanks for mostly full but warm ones. My friend tells me that the tanks come out covered with ice; this area is arid, so you know those tanks are getting COLD.
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