Modern propane tanks are too well designed to be unsafe.
Worse that will happen will be a little fireball and a flamethrower, but no explosions.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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Modern propane tanks are too well designed to be unsafe.
People like in the picture are the reason for that
We can thank them for providing quality assurance.
But a flamethrower pointed at another tank, increasing it's temp and pressure...
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(5 replies)
I work in propane and some body actually did this ~3 weeks ago with one of our cages
It'll not explode, but it'll burn the cage down along with anything the cage is near should a spark catch, they'll go up in flames FAST
Do you work in propane accessories too?
I've said it elsewhere on Lemmy:
I work in propane. I once was proud that I sold the most ez-go (stupid and basically useless accessory) in one month. my name starts with Ha-
I live in CA and prefer charcoal but otherwise I have become the professional persona of Hank Hill. My boss and I tried to get them to put "Hill" on one of my work shirts when I was still in the yard as a joke but Cintas said no
Hank was a very good man, always there for his friends and family.
These storage units are usually at gas stations though, which are kinda dumb to be smoking anywhere near IMO. But I still see people doing it now and then. Usually gas station employees.
It's fine, she doesn't believe in propane so it can't hurt her.
It’s funny how as soon as something is either invisible or disconnected by time from something else, it suddenly is a matter of belief for some people.
I’m glad we don’t hear debates about whether it is possible for an internal combustion engine to power a motor vehicle at highway speeds.
I really getting with "oh, you believe gasoline can power cars?!?" next time I meed a true believer.
You think Hoover dam was built by humans?? No-one can build anything that big. The architects were helped by aliens.
Structure of that size placed so precisely that it happens to form an artificial lake and produce electricity?
Besides Hoover dam is a single structure. No seams or parts. What factory can produce a mold that big let alone move it across from factory to the river. There are no trucks that big.
Aliens
Funny, tragic, same difference really. Tragedy + time and all that...
Unlike with gasoline, the ember of a cigarette is hot enough to ignite propane. However it's denser than air and would need to have a pressure valve actively leaking to create enough concentration to be dangerous
so I actually had a friend years back who worked at a junkyard.
I was hanging out there with him one time (definitely probably not smoking anything...) and he was still clearing things out.
so he grabs a propane tank and brings it up to where he has an oxyacetylin torch, lights the torch and starts cutting into the tank.
I about shit my pants and took off at least 50 ft back behind a car asking if he was trying to die today.
apparently I was the one that didn't know what I was talking about though because of a second later he cut through and it just popped a little flame.
he just let that flame burn until it was out and that's how he knew the tank was empty.
apparently these things are very hard to blow up.
They don't blow up, but they will create a bigass torch that will spin them around some. You're not getting blown into pieces, but you're going to be going into the er with some bbq'd body parts.
maybe if it was more full?
the tank didn't even move when I saw it, just a little flame about 4 inches long for a couple mins.
was super anticlimactic
4 inches long for a couple mins. was super anticlimactic
I've experienced something like that before ♀️ 😭
Also, if you handle them a lot, it's easy to tell how full they are by weight alone.
That sounds like it had almost nothing left in the tank. A full one will burn for a good bit.
Thanks, Hank
Coal is not allowed in this household!
Yeah nah, that's not the way. Sure people can get away with it, but it's really not eliminating the hazards.
- https://www.fnqsafetygroup.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/cutting-empty-drums.pdf
- https://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/safety-alerts/explosions-when-cutting-used-fuel-tanks-and-metal-drums
There's a bunch of non-obvious hazards which exist around cutting into containers which have held fuels, including but not limited to:
- An empty propane container could have an gas+air mixture inside it in proportions which could explode.
- Any liquid residue in an empty fuel container can be vapourised by the heat of the cutting, creating a fuel+air mix which can spontaneously explode from the pressure and heat, even without sparks (think: diesel engine principle but instead of a 0.25L cylinder it's a 200L cylinder).
- An empty gas canister can be contaminated with heavier oils/waxes that could build up over the years of refilling cycles, creating the same hazard as noted for empty liquid fuel containers.
Methods to reduce the hazard include:
- Thoroughly washing the inside of the container before cutting (access can be difficult though).
- Filling with water and cutting while full of water. (Container musn't be sealed, and the cutting method must be safe to use in a wet environment, and further hazards such as introducing oxygen into the container need to be considered).
Because the tank was almost empty. Who knows what happens if it's full, or overpressured, or corroded or something. Hiding behind a solid object would be my move as well.
Pressurised gas is a different story, and liquid pressurised gas is even worse still.
Basically a bomb if they are in a fire.
yeah this will work but you basically have to create a fire around the tank while keeping it pressurized right? you have to bring the whole tank to the point where it overwhelms the relief valve.
Yup. I've seen news footage of fuel depot fires where they had them stored, and you can hear them popping off like firecrackers.
I work in propane and have since late 2015. Used to work in the yard refilling, re-valving, painting, etc. these cylinders and tanks.
One of those things I did was empty (purge) the tanks before I pulled the valves out. Normally you do this by hooking them to a burn tower that pulls the fuel out and burns it away like 15 feet above everyone's head. My company didn't have permission from the city for they do we set up a tower anyway and just let the fuel pour out of it. You can imagine how... Fucking stupid that was?
Many times (I literally cannot count) people walked out with lit cigarettes and I was ready to die.
There's also the time my safety manager lit his flip flop on fire and kicked it over the propane dispenser WHILE IT WAS ON FIRE
Also: never swap your propane tanks at one of these cage services. Many of them will aim to give you a close to, or fully out of date tank so you cannot get them filled at a normal fill spot. They're also insanely expensive. If the swap out is $25 for a 5-gallon tank then you'd need to be spending $5/gallon at the dispenser for it to be even close in price, and if your propane dispenser is selling it to you for that or more then you're being fucked
Holy
Fucking
Shit
That's a wild story it just kept getting worse
Oh there's more like it, too, lol. Like the time a tank WASNT actually empty and I popped the valve off (I had done everything to bleed it off, the bleeder was stuck full of bug gunk I'd later find out). I was deaf for 5 minutes, the valve landed 1 building over, luckily didn't hit anyone/anything.
Then there's the time the cigarette guy climbed up the back of a fuel truck and popped the tank and looked in. He had a cig in his mouth, lit, and thought it was a diesel truck. It was a gas one. Had it been more empty (this fumes) he'd likely have blown his stupid ass up. Instead, he jumped off and twisted his ankle. I unironically hate that man with a passion for many, many reasons.
Or the time my co-worker was doing knife work and just stabbed himself in the gut. That one's a classic: overconfidence in cutting TOWARDS one's self.
Ooh, ooh, a good one: trimming trees with a chainsaw while on a pallet on a forklift 20ft in the air, held on by a rope tied around your WAIST. That was also the safety manager lol
Let me be clear: I've worked for chickenshit outfits like this before, where safety was an afterthought, so I can appreciate and relate to these stories.
That said, these all take the cake. Like I have seen and done some really sketchy shit, and these all top most of my stories.
I used to work 16+ hour days, stand in a dump trailer (confined space sort of), in the dark, and have a tractor lift 1 tonne bags of pellets into the trailer, open them (working under a suspended load), and dump the contents at my feet. The bags sometimes ripped from their hooks on the tractor and would come down fast.
Holy shit dude... the flip flop of fire story. How did that nutcase become a manager? Let alone a safety manager?
Funny enough he really was the safest and smartest guy on the team, the burning flip flop was someone else's fault lol
They'd poured some unknown diesel on the ground and held a lighter to it (testing if it was tainted with gasoline, it'll burn if so) and apparently it was VERY gasoline mixed. Idiot grabs a WATER HOSE to spray it so safety manager, who's on lunch and pulling into the yard jumps out of his truck and stomps on the fire to put it out. Just as the first guy sprays the water.
The fire skitters and lights the flip flop on fire, which safety manager kicks off without a thought because it was ON FUCKING FIRE, he just happened to arc it perfectly over the 500g dispenser tank. Another coworker ran over from "off camera" and doused it like 5 seconds after that, it was truly a comedy.
If safety manager was around then all of us yardies were in our steel toes, Anti-Flame gear, and wearing a mask and glasses if the work called for it. He was in the office 90% of the time dealing with bullshit though so we 3 idiots and an actually autistic guy that was so bad he needed supervision just to live (yeah they let him work around EXPLOSIVES) regularly did shit that would have gotten us shut the fuck down, and rightfully so. Gotta eat, though, so...
She’s on smoko, leave her alone.
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