propane bottles

[stormy2000]

hello,
  well wife and I have made the plunge and we are now FT in our 13 keystone sprinter 300 KBS, though we are in fl, some nights/mornings it gets
a bit cold.  we have a small electric fireplace 5100 btu.  to help get warm, and to help it out, we turn on our furnace (30k btu), at low setting, in a few mins it is nice and warm, let it run a bit and then turn off furnace and let fireplace continue.
  question, everytime we turn on furnace we go outside, and turn on the propane bottle, and then when we turn off the furnace we go back outside
again to turn it off. 
  - can we just leave the propane bottle on? or is it better to do it the way we are doing now? we didn't want our propane to waste away if we were
    not using it.

    thank you,


bill & jodi
 

 

[geodrake]

there should not be a problem with leaving it on.  Most do.

 

[Alfa38User]

There is no need to shut off the bottles each time as long as you are there. Mine stay on all winter in South FL. If we leave for a few days or more then the water and propane are both turned off.

We have the auto changeover system on our two 30 lb. bottles. When one becomes empty it will automagically switch to the other. I am not always so sure I like that as I will not know when one of the tanks is empty if I don't check regularly. BUT it sure beats going outside on a cold night at 3:00AM to do a manual switch over.  So, what I have taken to doing is that if the temperatures are low enough to warrant the furnace coming on overnight, I leave both bottles open, otherwise I leave one bottle off.

Propane can't go anywhere unless you are actually burning it, if it did, you would have a huge problem of another sort, and a potentially dangerous situation. You do have a propane detector in the trailer and it should (test it!!) alarm if propane fumes are detected. You can check it using a BBQ lighter (before the flame ignites) or the test button, if there is one. The propane detector is the one mounted low on the wall near the floor (in case you are not sure!!) and is connected to 12Volts (no small battery).

 

[stormy2000]

thank you for the inputs, i went outside and turned them on and now i don't have to do that like o dark thirty in the morning.
  and tested the lp detector, there is a button you can push, found that one out, did quick utube.  so we are good to go now
when its cold.  thank you again.

bill & jodi