Quote:
Originally Posted by Reenie
When i was on my hothead I never used the 1lb canisters. Went through them too quickly and couldn't get all the gas out of them before they'd freeze. You can get the 7 lb canisters for them and they work well. You just need to go to an RV shop for the hose for them. Never leaked gas, never omitted gas when valve was shut off.
I may have not been "to code" and I don't want to say that it's 100% Safe but how many times do we ever hear of a bbq tank just blowing up for no reason???
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Did you ever see the pictures that Milke Aurelius posted (I think it was on Wet Canvas) when he had a Hot Head failure in his studio? He caught a lot of flack for taking the time to take pictures, but he wanted to document it and he had the situation (pretty much) under control.
Oh my goodness. Out of nowhere, the torch or the little valve on the one pound cannister failed (I can't remember which) and there was fire shooting out of places where fire should never be shooting out of and there was nothing stopping it. He had to carry it outside to let it burn out (fortunately, he had the state of mind and a safe place for that). Could you imagine that happening while attached to a larger source of fuel? Here is a video of what just five pounds of ignited propane looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noMn8Zh-x_I
The guy shot his tank to get the explosion, but really, any ignited leak/failure could do the same thing. Would you want this happening near you?
BTW, I never had a single pound cannister freeze on me. I don't know if it was because I turned my HH off after each bead, or how I ran it, or what. But, several people say that using a warm bath of water around the cannister helps.
Just last night, someone posted in the bathroom about her bulk propane tank venting (see Holly's post above where she mentions the release valve). Could you imagine something like that happening indoors? Indoors, where the gas could easily find its way to an ignition source (maybe the running torch itself if you're not quick enough to shut it off). Just someone flipping on a lightswitch or dialing a telephone could cause ignition.
It's not so much that propane tanks are extremely likely to explode. It's the "what if something fails" that you have to consider. If you have a tank next to you and it fails (not terribly likely, but certainly possible and more likely given certain circumstances), the results can be catastrophic.