63# Propane Last......?
Typically how many days does a 63# propane tank last on a small class c motorhome?
Forum Discussion
A pound of propane provides about 21,500 BTUs; call it 20K BTU for ease of estimation. Appliance burners are rated in BTU per hour (though they often just call it BTU for some reason), so a little math can give you some reasonable answers.
A large range burner in an RV is often 9000 BTU; two and a bit hours on high use a pound of propane. The range is not likely to be a big consideration for propane use overall.
The fridge burner runs most of the time, and is around 1000 BTU as I recall; figure a pound a day and you're probably as close as you'll come for a general rule. It does depend on how warm the ambient temperature is and how frequently you open the fridge door and so forth, of course.
An RV water heater is perhaps 12,000 BTU, so an hour and a half or so of run time would use a pound of propane. That might be about a pound a day if you take a shower or two and wash dishes etc.
Furnace sizes vary, but 30,000 is not unreasonable. That's 1 pound every 40 minutes of furnace operating time. Propane usage goes way, way up in the winter.
No idea on a propane generator, except that it's not very miserly. A gasoline or diesel generator is in many ways more practical since it draws from the large main fuel tank for the motorhome.
The fridge typically uses somewhere around a pound a day, give or take. (There is quite a bit of give or take, of course, depending on how hot it is outside and how frequently you open the fridge door and so forth.)
Edit: Removed redundant leftover text from first draft of original posting.
A large range burner in an RV is often 9000 BTU; two and a bit hours on high use a pound of propane. The range is not likely to be a big consideration for propane use overall.
The fridge burner runs most of the time, and is around 1000 BTU as I recall; figure a pound a day and you're probably as close as you'll come for a general rule. It does depend on how warm the ambient temperature is and how frequently you open the fridge door and so forth, of course.
An RV water heater is perhaps 12,000 BTU, so an hour and a half or so of run time would use a pound of propane. That might be about a pound a day if you take a shower or two and wash dishes etc.
Furnace sizes vary, but 30,000 is not unreasonable. That's 1 pound every 40 minutes of furnace operating time. Propane usage goes way, way up in the winter.
No idea on a propane generator, except that it's not very miserly. A gasoline or diesel generator is in many ways more practical since it draws from the large main fuel tank for the motorhome.
The fridge typically uses somewhere around a pound a day, give or take. (There is quite a bit of give or take, of course, depending on how hot it is outside and how frequently you open the fridge door and so forth.)
Edit: Removed redundant leftover text from first draft of original posting.
