LP Fill Fail

Deano56 wrote:

et2 wrote:
Being that it's bone dry, it could indicate a leaky pressure relief valve. Ours never is allowed to go below 1/2. Always stored for the winter full. There is a chance you have contamination (rust) that caused the valve to stay open after she cracked it a bit.

I suggest having a professional look at it, and tell them it was dry for a year.

what makes you think it leaked to dry? I ran it dry using the furnace sitting in our driveway.Leaving it dry does not hurt a thing. If there is rust in there with a half, full or empty tank, it isn't going to matter either way

We can only base our comments on the original information you gave us. Your comment was the tank was bone dry. That is why I commented there could be a leak After the fact you then said you ran it dry and left it Contamination can cause plenty of issues, including causing your pressure relief valve to stick open.

It's well known that water can accumulate in a empty tank. I'm sure you'll get to the reason for your failure. Good luck.

et2 wrote:
Being that it's bone dry, it could indicate a leaky pressure relief valve. Ours never is allowed to go below 1/2. Always stored for the winter full. There is a chance you have contamination (rust) that caused the valve to stay open after she cracked it a bit.

I suggest having a professional look at it, and tell them it was dry for a year.

what makes you think it leaked to dry? I ran it dry using the furnace sitting in our driveway.Leaving it dry does not hurt a thing. If there is rust in there with a half, full or empty tank, it isn't going to matter either way

msmith1199 wrote:

Vapor is supposed to come out. You can't fill a pressurized tank with a liquid gas without giving the air someplace to go and it goes out that valve. That bleeder valve gets opened and as you fill the tank you can hear the hiss from the vapor (air with a propane smell to it) coming out of that valve. When the first sign of liquid appears then the tank is full. That's why you don't smoke while filling the tank with propane. Everything sounds perfectly normal to me.

Once a new tank has been initially purged, there should not be any air in it unless it has been emptied and the service valve has been left open. The gas that comes out of the open liquid level gauge (commonly misnamed the "vent" or "bleeder") is just that, propane gas until the liquid level reaches the valve at the 80% full point. And an LP tank can be filled without opening the liquid level gauge, but then you're depending on the overfill prevention device (OPD) to shut off the flow at the proper level, instead of it acting as a safety backup as intended.

I suspect the OP's problem may be related to either a missing gasket on the fill port, with the leaking gas escaping close enough to the liquid level gauge to mask its origin, or the operator failed to close the pressure relief vent on the fill nozzle.

Here's a link to a decent discussion with pictures of the innards of a motorhome cylinder.

http://roadtreking.com/innards-rv-propane-tank/

Lynn

Deano56 wrote:

dougrainer wrote:

Deano56 wrote:
let me spell this out more clearly, the vent did not fall off, it was/is there in tact. She did turn it open a little to see if there was any gas in there which there was not, then she pulled the handle and propane shot out, but I could not see from where as I backed away. Maybe the gasket was missing on the nozzle, or like some said the bleeder valve is bad. I'm going to take it apart

You state LP came OUT. You mean LIQUID came out or LP VAPOR came out? Out of the 80% valve(bleeder) or the fill nozzle area? If the fill nozzle area, then the gasket was missing or not seated. If LIQUID came out of the Bleeder, the tank was FULL. If Vapor came out the Bleeder, that is normal. Regardless, the person filling your LP tank is NOT qualified and should NOT be filling LP tanks, PERIOD. I will assume in your State, there are no regulations that govern LP operations. Doug

Vapor came out, she said it was the bleeder valve, she said even when she closed it all the way.just to show me, but I don't know that for sure because I backed off when she pulled the trigger. All I saw was a big puff of vapor. I did close it tight my self just to see and still big puff of vapor. I'm going back there this afternoon to see if I can get someone else there to try, other wise I will have to wait till next Friday when I'm off work to get to another place

Vapor is supposed to come out. You can't fill a pressurized tank with a liquid gas without giving the air someplace to go and it goes out that valve. That bleeder valve gets opened and as you fill the tank you can hear the hiss from the vapor (air with a propane smell to it) coming out of that valve. When the first sign of liquid appears then the tank is full. That's why you don't smoke while filling the tank with propane. Everything sounds perfectly normal to me.

Being that it's bone dry, it could indicate a leaky pressure relief valve. Ours never is allowed to go below 1/2. Always stored for the winter full. There is a chance you have contamination (rust) that caused the valve to stay open after she cracked it a bit.

I suggest having a professional look at it, and tell them it was dry for a year.

dougrainer wrote:

Deano56 wrote:
let me spell this out more clearly, the vent did not fall off, it was/is there in tact. She did turn it open a little to see if there was any gas in there which there was not, then she pulled the handle and propane shot out, but I could not see from where as I backed away. Maybe the gasket was missing on the nozzle, or like some said the bleeder valve is bad. I'm going to take it apart

You state LP came OUT. You mean LIQUID came out or LP VAPOR came out? Out of the 80% valve(bleeder) or the fill nozzle area? If the fill nozzle area, then the gasket was missing or not seated. If LIQUID came out of the Bleeder, the tank was FULL. If Vapor came out the Bleeder, that is normal. Regardless, the person filling your LP tank is NOT qualified and should NOT be filling LP tanks, PERIOD. I will assume in your State, there are no regulations that govern LP operations. Doug

Vapor came out, she said it was the bleeder valve, she said even when she closed it all the way.just to show me, but I don't know that for sure because I backed off when she pulled the trigger. All I saw was a big puff of vapor. I did close it tight my self just to see and still big puff of vapor. I'm going back there this afternoon to see if I can get someone else there to try, other wise I will have to wait till next Friday when I'm off work to get to another place

Deano56 wrote:
let me spell this out more clearly, the vent did not fall off, it was/is there in tact. She did turn it open a little to see if there was any gas in there which there was not, then she pulled the handle and propane shot out, but I could not see from where as I backed away. Maybe the gasket was missing on the nozzle, or like some said the bleeder valve is bad. I'm going to take it apart

You state LP came OUT. You mean LIQUID came out or LP VAPOR came out? Out of the 80% valve(bleeder) or the fill nozzle area? If the fill nozzle area, then the gasket was missing or not seated. If LIQUID came out of the Bleeder, the tank was FULL. If Vapor came out the Bleeder, that is normal. Regardless, the person filling your LP tank is NOT qualified and should NOT be filling LP tanks, PERIOD. I will assume in your State, there are no regulations that govern LP operations. Doug

let me spell this out more clearly, the vent did not fall off, it was/is there in tact. She did turn it open a little to see if there was any gas in there which there was not, then she pulled the handle and propane shot out, but I could not see from where as I backed away. Maybe the gasket was missing on the nozzle, or like some said the bleeder valve is bad. I'm going to take it apart

newman fulltimer wrote:

Old-Biscuit wrote:

Deano56 wrote:

Old-Biscuit wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by 'vent' :H

Did she close the 'service valve'?

Did she hook up propane hose/nozzle to the 'fill' connection?

Was the gasket there?

looks like the piece on the right of the fill port, not sure about the gasket, I would assume it was there but who knows. I'll check tomorrow

To the right of the fill port in picture is the 'bleeder valve' .

It should be Cracked OPEN when filling.....vapor comes out and then when it starts spitting liquid you STOP filling and close bleeder valve. Bleeder valve is set at 80% liquid level.

Sound like bleeder is still open or has failed.

Tank needs to be empty to replace.

The tank could have already been full and when she hit the nozzle it just spewed out:h

tank has been bone dry for a year, hence the reason for a fill