Out of Plumb

So last fall I had the propane talk filled, all 400 Gallons, $800 worth. The guy knocks on the door and says the fuel gauge is broken, shrugs and walks off. Sure enough it sill reads only 30%. Fine we will run it dry and replace it. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago. I notice the furnace fan hasn't shut off and seems to be blowing cold air. Great out of propane, its Friday night and we have a cold weekend of no heat in store. Give them credit, they sent a guy out Monday morning. The new young guy (he works harder than the rest) except when he was trying to pull the float arm out of the tank he broke off a bolt. Talked to the wife and said he would be back with help to fix it later. I come home that night and while eating dinner I swear I hear some one pounding on my propane tank with a hammer. No way, they wouldn't be that dumb. Yes they were. You might remember that picture I posted of the guy smoking while leaning against my tank while filling it? The same dude was now trying to center punch the broken bolt with a metal hammer and a tool steel punch. Right next to him is a 2 inch opening straight into my tank. For the unfamiliar, propane in the tank is rather safe because the tanks lack oxygen, they simply can't burn with out it. But open the top of the tank on a windy day and you have mixed oxygen and the gas in a large vessel other wise known as a bomb. All it needs is a spark, hammers on cold punches spark all the time. I run out to talk to them and inquire about the hazards of hammering on a tank like that. I kid you not, he leans over, sniffs the tank and declares it empty and safe. This guy didn't even know that propane is heavier than air, so it would sink into the tank and not be sniff-able. (Personally I thought it was pungent in that "no sparks or I will blow up and kill your family" sort of way) He then begins to drill the bolt with a left hand twist drill, standard procedure, but he breaks it off. Now he looks really confused, the old 'experienced' guy that is, the young guy looks embarrassed to be there. Soon I start to hear new noises, specifically "I think you are going to need a new tank". Pardon my french (grandma look away) the fuck I am going to buy a new tank because you morons screwed up. I go to the shop, grab the proper size drill and a tap and fix that son-of-a-bitch. You would have thought I had tuned water into wine. They went so far as to try and memorize the tools so they could get some. We get down to business with the float. (at this point I will not let them work 'unsupervised') The young guy comments on how it is shorter, his superior comments that its all they had, then turns to me and says its better than nothing right? (grandma turn away again) Uh fuck no. The tank will read empty when it still has 30% left (ironically the opposite of when we started) and I will have to wait a full year to burn all the propane, then have these same guys do the whole process again and buy another proper float. I told them I would rather wait for them to order in the proper mechanism. The young guy speculates out loud if it is just the gauge on top that is bad. Turns out they are universal and driven off a magnet in the float arm. (no direct connection with the gauge means no holes in the tank to leak) Two small philips screws later and everything works. My old float arm was fine. (and it should be, it works in a sterile environment and only moves a full cycle twice a year) What this means is that none of the work they did (or rather I did) was in any way necessary. You do not need to pull the float arm to change the gauge. The topper was when I got the bill for their labor. Don't you mean MY labor boys? Your labor would have cost me a 500gal propane tank.

Labels: Fixing a propane tank, Trying not to die