No coffee :(
After yesterday’s big post about water we awoke today to find that our tanks were empty. This doesn’t make brewing coffee all that easy. But wait… we have spare 2L bottles of water in a hatch!
With water and coffee now in the pot Rebecca goes to turn the stove on… aaargh… no propane! This could be one of those days! 🙁
On the subject of propane, when we last filled up our tank the guy at the gas station informed us that that was the last time we could refill the tank as it is too old. Now we have a decision to make. Do we purchase another steel tank (the standard kind that everyone uses for their barbecue) or get a more marine-specific one made of aluminum or fiberglass? The latter two options are corrosion resistant but are much more expensive.
We were big King of the Hill fans, before we cancelled our Satellite TV subscription to save money!
Here is the dilemma we were faced with: trying to troubleshoot a problem just after waking up, without the benefit of caffeine. The issue was NOT that we were out of water and propane. The issue was that somehow the main power switch got turned off, which controls both the electric water pump and the LP Gas safety switch. MUCH easier to rectify, but we of course only noticed this after we had topped up the water tanks and swapped the propane tanks onto our secondary supply. grrrr.
When it DOES come time to swap out the tanks, figure how many steel ones have to rust out before you have exceeded the cost of the newer types. One thing, with fiberglass, you can see the gas, so no shorting on the refill, as is common with opaque tanks! Weight of tanks is also a concern for some of us. Also, there is a thread on the Living Aboard forum about differing nozzles/hookups in various countries. Don’t know how much that would matter, depends on where you are going!
Thanks for the comment Helen!
That is my thinking exactly. I could go through 4 or more steel tanks I think before it would equal an Aluminum one.
I read one post on the Liveaboard forum where it said that in some countries (Panama perhaps?) they required you swap the tanks as opposed to refilling them. One certainly wouldn’t want to be trading their expensive hi-tec tank for an older steel one.
I’ll also be sure to do some checking to see what nozzles/adapters are required before venturing south.