20lb versus 100lb propane tanks

[mrjigger]

My brother and I are building a fish house on wheels. The heater we are looking at buying is a 20000btu wall mounted ventless heater. We have talked to a few people who have told us it may not operate well on a 20lb propane tank because lack of pressure. May only get low and medium heat settings. Just looking for some more opinions and what size tanks other people use for similar style heaters.

[eyehunter]

I really don't think that you would have any problem with pressure. I think the bigger question is how often you plan to move the house? A 100# tank is heavy and they do get froze in, if you are planning on moving the house around alot, then I would suggest the 20#. However, I use the 100# on my house and when it does freeze down good, it makes it much harder for somebody to steal it.

[GRAND DAD]

I am by no means a expert on this there is a guy on here that is and can give you all kinds of formulas, but the gist is colder it is the more presure you need to keep your heater working. I personaly use 2 40lb tanks and on a couple of very cold nights my heater did stop working what I call my tanks freezing up know I don't know what btu rating is but its a big ventless what I do to correct this problem when It happens I take one or two hand and foot warmers and a scarf and rap them around the valve and reglulater it works for me when it happens but that only happen 2 or 3 times on the colest nights so thats my story biger tank less you have to fill it and worry about it not flowing a enough to keep the heat on.

[LODFFB]

I agree. last year I had a 20# and a 40#. I have a ventless 20000 btu garage heater and even on the 40# I woulod run out of vapors to burn. Not smart to do but I would run the 20# and get what I could on low and bring my 40# in the house to warm up for an hour even when I ran out it would still be warm enough to warm the big tank up.

[iffwalleyes]

If you are building the house. I assume it is a drop down. Have a frame welded up that will fit a 100lb tank and mount it to the house. That is how I have mine. It works great. I crank up and away I go the tank never comes off of the house.

[mustangt69]

i dont think you will have any problems...just watch your regulator. i ran my forced air 16000 btu off 1 20lb tank during sub zero nights last winter. The only time i had any problems was when i was building the house and i used the old regulator and i found out it was clogged full of dump and it was freezing up. after that i bought a new one and no problems. On the smaller tanks, i think it makes more of a difference when the gas goes from a liquid to a solid and it will cool down the tank more and its contents depending on the draw. If the tank gets too cold, i think it will push liquid propane into the regulator, freezing it up. just my guess. Just think of the small burner on a grill that uses the cylinders and see how frosted it gets. That small amount of flame wont even affect a 100 lb tank.

[Bandit]

I used 20lb tanks for years. Had alot of trouble when it was -20 or so [30,000 btu ventless]. Finally mounted 2 100lb tanks on the front of the house and have not had a problem since. Not only do they work better, but you don't have to mess around changing out tanks in the middle of the night or hauling them back to town to get them filled. Save yourself some headaches and set your house up for 1 or 2 100lb tanks NOW!

I keep 1 20lb tank at the house for insurance, and have not used it yet.

[hanson]

I agree with most of said regarding 100lb tanks. Do it!

A 20 pounder will work when its full and it isn't below 0, but we're ice fishing in Minnesota so when isn't it ABOVE 0?

Whenever I run my Empire off of a 20lb tank, the heater will continuously go out and is hard to start. With a 100lb tank, I don't have those problems, even a 40lb is much better.

I will be the first to admit its not really fun to wake up in the middle of the night when its -17 below on URL cause your 20 pounder frosted up or ran out. Been there... not fun!

[ripstick]

We use 2 20# in our house. when one is empty we allways have a back up all the time. we too have a wall mount and never had a problem. When we are done for the nite both tank go in the house.

[kwiggy]

Here is my two cents, please feel free to correct me if you disagree... Think of a candle burning. The wick burns brighter, hotter, and cleaner when a pool of wax is present to fuel the flame. Now think of a propane burner... it is burning GAS not liquid. This means that the tank has to be large enough to allow the liquid propane to convert to gas before it is burned in the heater. Larger heaters (more BTUs) need a larger reservoir of GAS not liquid. The larger tanks allow for that reservoir. Therefore, the larger the heater, the bigger the tank. I wished I was smart enough to tell you what size heaters need what size tanks, but I'm not. I would error on the bigger size. I do that with my beer cans (16oz) and I always have gas