Propane in the House? NO!
 

From the MSDS for propane:

"DANGER! Fires impinging (direct flame) on the outside surface of unprotected pressure storage vessels of Propane can be very dangerous. Direct flame exposure on the container wall can cause an explosion by BLEVE (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosion). This is a catastrophic failure of the vessel releasing the contents into a massive fireball and explosion. The resulting fire and explosion can result in severe equipment damage (meaning fire trucks!) and personnel injury or death over a large area around the vessel. For massive fires in large areas, use unmanned hose holder or monitor nozzels; if this is not possible, withdraw from the area and allow fire to burn."

This is a 'hot' topic, and we might as well get it discussed right off the bat. My intention is not to point any fingers but to get an idea of how many people are working safely with propane, and how many are not.

For those who aren't, what can we do to convince you to get that propane outside where it belongs?

Great topic! I'm not using propane yet and this will help me set my studio up safely when I do.

I can't vote, mine is kept in the welding shop beside the studio.

Mine is kind of an other. My tank is in my garage. I know, it probably should be outside.

Hi Mike,

My response isn't up there. When my tank is being used, I bring it into the garage and hook it up. Now, I can't say it doesn't stay in the garage overnight sometimes, but if I know I'm not going to be torching for a few days, it does go outside of the garage.

I had no idea you lived in MN until this new forum was started. If you ever come down to the twin cities area, I would love to impose on your time and knowledge and get your opinion on how my studio could be improved.

Thrilled to see you over here!!!
Denise

If the garage is attached to the house, that is considered part of the house.

Are there any particular reasons people feel the need to keep the tank inside in or near the studio?

All though my tank is in the shop which is attached to the house,my set up was installed by a welder, inspected by the buliding inspector, insurance adjustor AND the fire chief. If they say it's safe I trust them. I think 2 layers of fireboard and the fire chiefs OK is good?

Edit to nothing.

Dale

I store my propane outside my house, and when I use it, I have it sitting outside my window with the hose running through the window.

Hugs from Holland,
Sarah

Tank in
 

WHen you are like me and haven't been able to GET an outdoor tank installed due to your BOONINESS of location, you do as I have been doing. The BBQ tank comes inside WHILE I AM TORCHING. I have a quick release and pop it off as soon as I am done, OUt it goes to the storage shed AWAY FOM THE HOUSE. WHen it IS inside, I have it about 20 feet from my work area, behind a door.

Outdoor tank SHOULD be here in a couple more months (PTL!)
Lynnie

Edit to nothing.

Dale

UPDATED July 4th. Propane tank has been installed OUTSIDE, Ventiliation installed INSIDE!!

Woohoo!
Lynnie

I know you're not attacking me, honest! You won't hear any arguments from me! I have an appointment to have my propane installed outside, just on a waiting list! Hubby will be placing a rack outside my studio window for me to place my propane tank on, and hose it indoors till then. I Read all the thread, thank you!

My tank sits next to me while I work, but I'm working outside on the deck. As part of setting up my back room for torching, hubby is running a NG line into the room, so I won't need the tank anymore... except on nice days when I work out on the deck!

Barbara

--bump--

Where do I go to see safety issue things for HH use? Is there some sort of checklist for all this stuff (propane or otherwise) somewhere that is concise?

At the Art Glass Forum http://www.artglassforum.com

there are several sub fora, one on Safety, one on Technical Information. There are several dozen "white papers" that can be read all dealing directly or indirectly with torches and the Hot Head in particular.

I have my propane tank set up with a quick connect.
I bring it in to work and I take it out when I am finished...
I have a propane/natural gas sensor plugged in with battery back up and it is floor level...
So I feel mostly safe…
Eventually I will get it to where it comes in from outside but who knows when that will be…

Mine is in the garage too.

I know that this will cause discontent and I was thrashed for commenting on this subject before. But what is the justificatioin in having your propane tanks inside....

Its against NFPA codes, most municipal codes and it is dangerous....

Dale

Dale, would you knock it off with the deleting your posts thing...I really wanna read the darn things blast it! I missed your posts for a long time, now you're teasing me.

~~Mary

Sorry..... From some feed back from a vocal person I got the feeling my post on propane safety were not welcome here, so I deleted them.... Walked away from it and decided that after somebody blows up their house and their neighbors and kills a few people and are walking around asking self "why me" (if they survive explosion) then I may explain it to them...

Dale

Dale............you are doing it again.........

I guess I can no longer post in this forum......... The SAFETY forum is no longer about safety.... It about who has approval to post here..........

Dale

I appreciate your posts Dale. Keep vocalizing.

Safety discussions can be handled in a mature, adult fashion.

Ding ding ding!

Gentlemen, go to your corners... no name calling or hitting below the belt. Play nice! :D

Dale, you are welcome to post here. You are also welcome to handle how you approach safety issues, different than Mike. You don't need Mike's permission to post on this forum. Please play nice with eachother... we want this to be a friendly place. If you guys have personal issues, please don't fight it out here. PM or email eachother. You don't have to agree on topics... just be respectful when you post. :D

Thank you Moderators - safety is so important for us all.

Hi, Dale,

We live on a boat and use propane for cooking. The safety issues are many and the regulations are amazingly stringent, we have to pass a safety certificate inspection every four years including a test of the entire gas system or else we fail. When we looked at torching aboard the boat (ventilation is not the issue as we have more ventilation per square foot than any house would, also due to the safety regs) and we could easily set up an exhaust system more than adequate for our needs, we would have been able to connect our torch to the plumbed-in propane line in the boat. However, to support your discussion about safety, our tanks are required to be stored outside the boat proper, in a specially constructed locker that has low-level drainage holes to allow the any gas that could leak to drain away safely outside the boat. It's not required but many boats also have gas detectors installed at floor level to detect any stray propane gas, our cooking appliances such as the hob and oven all have flame-failure devises on them and all other gas appliances such as fridges or hot water heaters or furnace/heaters must be vented to the outside and not draw in room air for their combustion chambers.

That said, we are lucky enough to have a mooring with room for a shed, so we keep our propane tank outside the shed, and Mike's installed a variation of the 'Barley Box' over his work space with venting to the outside above the torch, and a wooden baffle just above the torching area to catch the fumes and keep them in that space till they're exhausted.

We've seen a few boats burned out because people were careless and thought they were doing things the right way. Safety is vital, and education of boaters is no more easy than any other group. It wasn't till the government and the EU created all the stringent regulations that boats became much safer places to live aboard and yet two weeks ago a couple were hospitalized simply because they were stupid enough to be refilling a kerosene heater INDOORS while it was still hot. The boat is a complete loss. They're only very lucky they're alive.

I understand completely your desire to educate and keep everyone safe.

-Su

My position is that I'd rather have an open, free of discord discussion on the merits of propane usage and installation.

I see NO evidence of anybody "harassing" or "attacking" anyone in this thread.

Quite frankly, safety is not something most people "plan ahead of time" on, it is usually "after the fact".

"After the fact" in the sense of AFTER a minor accident, AFTER more thought when the "newness" of lampworking wears off, or AFTER someone points out a few problems in their setup.

I think that all Dale is trying to do is to bring it into the "forefront" of your minds, and to do that, he has to make an "impressionable" statement to get your attention.

We should be VERY thankful that we have people like Dale, who "keep an eye out" for safety issues. I'm sure if Dale were to see my studio, that he'd be able to find problems with it too.

Oh, and one more thing, WHY was this poll set up as a PUBLIC poll ?? I can certainly see why people would NOT want to vote in the poll, especially if they have a problem, because their names are shown !! I believe there would have been MORE results, and probably MORE truth, if this had NOT been a public poll !!

Respectfully,

Bill

Bill - that's because Dale removed via editing all his previous posts. I'll not comment on that further.

And for the poll - I was trying to get an idea of what the percentages were of "good way" versus "not good way". As for the listing the names, I am unaware that there is a way to hide the names. If there is, would the administrators, please change the poll to a "private" poll? It was not my intention to have names listed.

For the love of Pete... would you guys stop picking on eachother? I see everyones point. Everyone has a different approach to how they deliver the safety message. Diversity will reach everybody. Arguing on who's approach is best dilutes the origional intent of this thread. I'm sure there are people that appreciate and need both approaches. Telling me it's not safe may not do the trick, but telling me I could blow up my neighborhood, just might get my attention... and vise versa. I think both approaches are valid and have their place. ;)

Thank you Su and Bill for the continuing support of safety in the studio.

Dale

I don't see a way for me to make it private. I'll ask the admins to check it out. They have more control over the site. :)

This is all about Safety. I think we need to keep that in mind. I want to hear what you both have to say. If there is an iffy situation then let us moderators handle it. As long as no one is handing out bombs or dishing out names we are good. I like hearing or should I say seeing both sides of the story. Yes I think your Tanks should be outside. That does not mean that they are in all cases. But if we can educate lampworker's on the importance of this then we might make a difference. But if we fight over the situation then that puts doubts in peoples head. Let’s not put doubt in there heads. Let’s stick together and make this a place to learn about safety.

Laurie

Let's hear more about why it's dangerous to have them inside...

Propane gas is heavier than air. If there is a leak in your system, in an enclosed space, it will settle near the floor. This will build up and if it reaches an ignition source, it can cause quite a boom. Even if your tanks are stored outside, it is necessary to turn them off when not in use. The torch valves or hoses can malfunction and you could end up in the same boat... with it all leaking inside a closed space. I think the "why" to all of this is just as important when discussing the main problem. I'm sure you can all add to my feeble attemp at explaning the science behind the danger. :D

That's all I need to say.

I can't vote...because my answer isn't up there! "No, my BBQ tank stays outside, & I bring my hothead attached to it's rolling computer cart outside to torch whenever I can" :D
So I never actually have propane in the house...tho if I can figure out a way to safely run hoses for the winter...that might change...but it's not looking promising :( I'll likely have to just give up torching from Nov-May.

Why don't you just run a hose through a window? Until I get my permanent set-up built, I have a board in my window to give enough space to run the hose through, but still keep the cold/hot/bugs out. When I finish, I disconnect my hose from the tank and bring it (hose) in to close the window. I'm wayy to paranoid to to bring the tank in and it's wayy too hot to torch outside. (too many skeeters, too!)

Oh--I have a basement apartment with a kind of weird set up--so I'm trying to figure out a "good way" to do the window thing....weird windows & all....Most of my windows are at "eye level" so the hoses would "hang" into the house when I was torching--I don't have any windows level with any tables....and I wasn't sure how the hothead would react to that since propane wants to flow down anyway....ah, the joys of living "underground" ;)
~~Lyn

Lyn - torching with propane in a basement is never a good idea, it doesn't matter whether it is with a hothead or a oxy/propane torch.

Ventilation is difficult to manage, as is the problem of propane pooling. And running full pressure propane...I don't even want to think about it.

I have a sort of non-related question for those of you who teach classes....

Where do you keep your propane when teaching? We teach in a bead shop. We have 4 torches going, and keep our propane in a separate room. Well, not really a room. The store is in an old building (about 9000 sq ft) and only the front half is finished. The back half is a large warehouse. There is a wall in the middle of the building. Where we teach is right along the back wall, and we put our propane in the back half of the building and run the hoses through the door. Is there anything better someone can suggest? We don't leave the tanks there. We take them for the class, and take them home when it's done.

Yes, we have good ventilation, BTW. So good that we have problems with it blowing the flames around if we aren't careful...

There is a lot of things better........

First off the rules for propane storage may differ in a commercial zoning than a residential zoning situation... And from one area to another the country.

The best situation you can have is that propane tank be outside building, PERIOD. By placing it outside that keeps any possibility for propane that may be leaking from tank from accumulating inside building. Also be aware that a tank subjected to excessive heat (fire) will "blow off excess pressure" (tank safety valve) when INTERNAL PRESSURE of tank reaches 375psi, this may be caused by fire near location of tank. Best scenario would be tank placed in outside secure metal cabinet with ventilation holes top and bottom or a wire cage security enclosure..Also mark outside storage with "FLAMMABLE GAS" warning signs. By piping in gas in metal piping you remove danger of large volume of gas (tank) inside building. Propane should be piped in at LOW PRESSURE, NFPA codes state you can bring propane in at max pressure of 20psi. This can be done by having a fixed pressure regulator at tank. Also you should have shutoff valve (2) for gas piping one immediately before it enters building and other at "end" of piping before you distribute gas to adjustable regulator(s) or manifold (s) where hoses from torches attach. Each gas valve should be clearly marker that it is a "FLAMMABLE GAS SUPPLY" and clearly its "OFF and ON"" positions. Also suggest you include city building permits and inspection in piping processes and qualified or at least gas knowledgeable experienced people in plumbing process. Having it done right will cut down on liability issues with insurance and legal actions in case there is any litigation in case of fire or personal injury.

If situation is temporary, it still would be best to have hose long enough to keep tank outside... Temporary situation create a gray area where NFPA and local regulations may not apply. But good safety practices dictate tank be out side. Also where hose goes through doorways, use some sort of stop so hose is not pinched or cut by "closing" door.

Dale

Chad, when I moved my teaching studio to its present location, the building inspector and fire inspector both came through and did inspections. The fire inspector used NPFA (which our city has adopted as its fire code) rules. Propane has to be outside. All connections from the propane tank to the point of distribution have to plumbed in metal pipe, no rubber, even "T" grade. There have to be shut off valves outside before the line goes through the wall, inside after the wall entry, and at the point of distribution. Every 20 feet, the fuel gas line has to be marked with a sign indicating the gas in the line and direction of flow.

Visible on the outside of the building I had to put the NFPA diamonds for propane, compressed oxygen and liquid oxygen. The Rubbermaid "box" that I keep the propane in had to be protected from impact from vehicles (concrete filled steel tubes driven into the ground). Flexible metal hose from the tank to the main fuel gas line.

Valves had to be NFPA approved gas valves, ordinary water or compressed air valves are not code.

All connections had to be flare fittings or threaded fittings, not compression fittings.

No screw type hose clamps on any of the "T" grade rubber hoses. The ones I had needed to be removed and replaced with the twin ear compression type hose clamps.

Any place where the rubber hose could be bumped or moved was to be protected, so that the hose would not chafe or be cut or compressed accidentally.

If teaching is going to be a regular part of the studio activity, I strongly recommend that you bring the fuel gas installation up to NFPA standards BEFORE you have inspection. Chances are that if it is not to standards, the building inspector or fire inspector could red tag you and shut you down until the entire studio is brought up to code and re-inspected.

Propane is nothing to mess with, keep it outside. Period. This weekend my hubby's cousin just lost his 12 year old daughter to a propane explosion from a leak building up under their house. They used it for cooking. She didn't make it out of the house alive.

~Suzy~

I'm sorry to hear that.... Prayers go out for your familys loss...

Dale

Yeah...it's a "walk out" basement (house built into the side of a hill--one side is "ground level"--but my doors are on that side, no windows) but that's why I take the torch outside & melt glass in the driveway--the tank lives outside in the shade of the porch, torch & table come inside when I'm done. I'm just peeved we've had a LOUSY summer so far & thinking of that 6 months of "too cold to torch" is making me crazy! (wonder if I can convince my brother in law his lawn tractor doesn't need to be stored in his shed? ;))

Prayers & hugs to your family Suzy....
~Lyn

That's horrible, Suzy. I'm so sorry. Please give him and all of your family my condolences.

My friends' cabin in Crested Butte, CO. blew up because of a propane pipe leak in the basement. Luckily, they had gone home two days before. They usually turned off the gas from their large tank outside the house when they left but some people were coming the next week so they left it on. Thank god there were no casualties. It was still a traumatizing experience for them, so PLEASE be careful with any kind of fuel gasses. Parts of their cabin were found TWO BLOCKS away!

If you keep your propane tanks in a container outside, make sure you have vent holes near the bottom for the gas to get out and holes near the top for fresh air to get in. You don't want to open it with propane all pooled in there!

Also-- if you go the natural gas route, make sure you have a gas-certified plumber install your lines. If not a plumber, make sure the installer is gas-certified. Make sure you have on-off valves where they are easy to reach and are clearly marked ON-OFF in case of a problem. Have all lines and valves re-checked by a gas-certified inspector at least once a year.

Lots of things can ignite natural gas or propane in an enclosed space-- it's nothing to mess with. If you have any natural gas or propane lines in your house, they should be checked by a gas-certified inspector regularly. If you ever smell gas in your house, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. Go to a neighbor's house and call the gas company. Let them come and turn off the gas and check for leaks. They have sophisticated leak-detecting equipment and can turn the gas off from a remote location if neccessary.

I know of way too many bad things happening to people, like my friends here in New Orleans who were killed when the shed that they kept their hot water heater in exploded when they opened the door. None of us here want to seem like school-marms or hall monitors but we also do not want to hear about something terrible happening to anybody.

Fuel can be dealt with safely and with a minimum of risk as long as we all take the necessary precautions to make it so. Replace compromised equipment when it breaks down, don't have large quantities of flammable gas in your house, check for leaks in your hoses and regulators once a month, and have a gas-certified inspector check all your gas appliances, lines and valves yearly. All of those precautions will minimize your risks, and you can torch to your heart's content, safely and happily.

The problem with our tank being outside is that we are on the second floor. If we were to move the tank outside, we would need at least 150 feet of hose, if not more. And, we are in a busy downtown area, so I'm not sure it would be safe outside.

I believe there is natural gas in the area, so I'm trying to convince them to tap into their natural gas supply to run the torches (plus it would be easier than me lugging tanks back and forth) but I don't know if that will happen any time soon...