Carrying Aux propane tank

TXDego wrote:
We carry our extra tank on our trailer.

Please make sure, if anyone ever decides to carry a propane tank, always carry it upright in a vented area. Never ever, carry a propane tank laying it down on its side. I am sure several people have done otherwise and never had a problem, however doing so can be fatal(person experience with this). You don't want to loose your family or family member because of something that very easily could have been avoided.

Propane is a very volitle gas, that is surprising easy to combust, and when it does, it expands very rapidly. Another big problem, is when tanks are being filled, they are often overfilled.

Do yourself a favor, when getting tanks filled, tell the person filling them to not quite fill them full. Overfilling of tanks happens very often, and when a tank is overfilled, it will vent off the exxcess gas later when the temperatures or pressures increase.

Here is the example, you take your tank it to be filled. It gets filled, probably even overfilled since overfilling takes place 50% of the time. The temperature outside is say 85 deg. You then take your tank and put it in your storage bay below your coach. Road temps, engine temps, exhaust temps, etc. heat up your bay & tank to probably 100 deg(or hotter). The propane expands in the tank and needs to vent(as it is desgined to do so) to releive the pressure. You now have a propane gas clound inside your bay compartment. This is somewhat normal for the most part. However when your tank is overfilled, which is also very common, you will have even more excess gas being vented off when your tank heats up. When your the gas cloud accidently ignites in an enclosed area, it will act like a bomb, which will then cause your actual propane tank to explode causing a second explosion. The two together will have devastaing effects.

Just to finalize this. Here is the results of my fathers accident, where a propane tank, in the bed of a parked truck, well vented, spontaneously combusted, and exploded. Imagine similar results under your coach in a bay compartment.