Propane tank telemetry system

Our tank rental is about the same $85/year. Makes zero sense to buy a tank when I'm 66 and even if we stay 10 more years.

Our propane cost was $1.99/gal last fill in Sept
Do they add in Safety P&T fee of $12.92 and Transportation fee of $8.98?
That is what is on my bill, plus local sales tax is the only other item of 6.75%
 
Around me the big name local propane suppliers almost always require their tank, as did mine. Some are one time sales, some are rental, mine was free for new customers but their property. But the local grain elevators will sell to you without any restrictions usually and usually at a lower price.
 
That is pretty nifty dialers hooked to a phone line been around for ages so going over to cellular services is a no brainer. Had a customer that lost her husband and to save money dropped one of her phone lines not knowing why her husband kept the 2nd line it was for the propane dialer service. she found out that winter when she run out of propane for her heat and generator. How accurate is that during winter propane levels are affected in the cold.
 
It’s pretty much freezing every morning and the temp in the house coasts down at night and the boiler with a water to air heat exchanger comes on each morning at about 6:30. I let the propane boiler do the heavy lifting and I make a fire in the wood stove ( a modern one with an outside air intake). At 8:00 the final adjustment in temp is done by the boiler but helped by the hot wood stove. After that, and once the outside temp is above freezing I let the fire die out and the heat pump maintains the temp. Here’s the exhaust from the boiler.

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My float sticks for sure now. Only temp fix is smacking with a sledge hammer. Wife gets scared but tank walls = thick. Free the bugger up whenever I get the itch.

Real fix will be open tank or new tank.
 
This morning was foggy with 77% relative humidity. The temp was right at 32 F. The heat pump iced up pretty good but was still putting out heat. I can’t imagine the COP was all that good, so I switched back to propane. Here’s a pic of the unit. You can see the ice on some of the coils. It wasn’t quite bad enough to go into the defrost cycle.


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That is pretty nifty dialers hooked to a phone line been around for ages so going over to cellular services is a no brainer. Had a customer that lost her husband and to save money dropped one of her phone lines not knowing why her husband kept the 2nd line it was for the propane dialer service. she found out that winter when she run out of propane for her heat and generator. How accurate is that during winter propane levels are affected in the cold.
I don't see why they can't just use the main line at 3 in the morning. Though I can also see the propane vendor getting a huge bulk discount on teeny amounts of cell data, much like vending machines use for credit card charges.

I get my propane "Will Call" so they don't trample the wife's flowers, or have to deal with overhead icicles in the winter. One fill, every November.
 
I don't see why they can't just use the main line at 3 in the morning. Though I can also see the propane vendor getting a huge bulk discount on teeny amounts of cell data, much like vending machines use for credit card charges.

I get my propane "Will Call" so they don't trample the wife's flowers, or have to deal with overhead icicles in the winter. One fill, every November.
To be honest, the use of main lines is something from grandpa’s days. ;)
 
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One thing I find is my 12 year old American Standard thermostat can properly anticipate when to start the heat pump to hit the programmed temperature at the programmed time. However, if I manually choose the backup system which in my case is the propane boiler, it doesn’t know to start early.
 
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One thing I find is my 12 year old American Standard thermostat can properly anticipate when to start the heat pump to hit the programmed temperature at the programmed time. However, if I manually chose the backup system which in my case is the propane boiler, it doesn’t know to start early.
Our is full auto. I expected real issues as in: "I'll need to do it myself, I know now this will turn out" . But it's perfect. 3+ years in. Perfect.

I should find the previous idiot and show him our savings.
 
My telemetry system indicates 36 % full and I just received a note from the propane company if I would like a fill. I hit “yes” on my cell phone. Here is the plot. I’m using propane more now that it’s below freezing.

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Here is the latest graph. My tank is 500 gallons, or 400 gallons filled to 80 %. The percentage is based on the 500 gallons of capacity. Ie when it’s “full” the gage indicates 80%, not 100 %. It’s currently just below freezing during the afternoons and 20 F in the early morning.

I’m going through about 1% of the tank everyday, or about 5 gallons. This includes in-floor heat in the garage set at 60 F. Enjoy the chart.

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