Burying propane tank

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BadDad

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Hi guys!
So i've purchased a 5 acre lot, found out my well is not good :'-(
but i've moved on from that. we will be building our dream home on this land, and while we will have a water connection from the county (and one day fix the well) we will not have gas or sewer (septic)

We will need to purchase a large propane tank.
I personally do not like the look of the propane tanks above ground, and was wondering if it can be buried, and obviously leaving an access to the top where the filler port would be.

is that something that can be done? any pros/cons to doing so?

or would i be better off just building a fence or something around it to hide it.
 

DaveHo

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Propane tanks are buried all the time around here. Not sure what Cali regulations are.
 

DonL

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is that something that can be done? any pros/cons to doing so?

or would i be better off just building a fence or something around it to hide it.

You should check your local code.

The difference is what is temporary and what is permanent can make your taxes go up.

You need a special permit here if you bury anything deeper that 18 inches.

California may not let you dig at all, They own the Land / Dirt. You just rent it.

I own / rent my property in Texas too. The Tax Collector Sucks.

Good Luck.
 

CountryBumkin

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I've been thinking about this too. I currently rent a tank for my pool spa heater and I would like to hide the tank (put underground) and eliminate the annual rental charge.
This website has some good info http://www.propane101.com/undergroundpropanetanks.htm

I was also told that it may be hard to find someone to fill a tank that you own. The propane companies don't like filling thanks that they don't know anything about (they don't rent to you). Maybe its a legitimate liability concern or maybe to discourage people from buying their own tanks. I don't know if this is true, but that's what I was told, and I didn't call any local propane companies (yet) to see if this would be an issue in my area (central FL).
 

Storm rider

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I owned my own tank for over 20 years in So Cal. When I needed gas I would call around and buy from the supplier with the best price. The major name brand national company would not sell to me, but the three local guys were all eager for the business. I did not bury my tank, but it was behind the garage and out of view. In my current community, we are required to put a fence around the tank to hide it.
 

Jadnashua

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All of these things have a lifetime...it's illegal for a company to refill a tank that is older than a certain age unless it has been recertified that it can safely hold the pressure. I do not know how they handle a customer owned tank, but do know how they handle smaller ones, like you use for say a barbeque...can't refill it if it is older than 'x'. At least, they're not supposed to.

I would think FL might have a problem with the water table...burying something might be problematic in many areas...it might just float out of the hole!
 

JerryR

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My owned propane tank has been buried here in Florida since 1996 and there is no issue getting it filled.
 

Jadnashua

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Each state has its own requirements on inspections...some require the tank be inspected at 3-year intervals and records kept. There are also requirements on how close to the building the tank can be installed, and it must be protected from vehicular traffic. If the area is subject to flooding, you have to take special precautions to prevent the tank from being 'floated', or dislodged.
 

WJcandee

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We have had a buried propane tank for over 10 years. The underground tanks are made differently than the above-ground tanks. In Nassau County, you have to have an approved contractor put it in and the Fire Marshal has to approve the design of the installation and inspect the installation before you can use it (and the propane companies first check with the Fire Marshal's office before they will make any deliveries to you). In our case, the supplier that was hired by our generator contractor (the reason we got it) gave us the option of owning or leasing. We went with owning because of the flexibility it gave us to change suppliers later if we wanted to do so.

That flexibility was helpful after Superstorm Sandy, when I fired our supplier (Paraco) and hired a different one (Petro). The day after the storm, with our generator running at the beginning of what would be a 15-day power outage, I calculated my needs, called Paraco, and scheduled a delivery for three days' hence. "Fine" they said. "No problem." In the interim, they took a million calls from people and went into crisis mode. They simply failed to show up on the appointed day. When I called them, they said that unless I lied (like everyone else was doing) and said that the tank was empty and the generator had quit, they wouldn't even put me on the schedule. I wasn't willing to lie. Part of this was a problem of their own creation because they were disinclined before the storm to top off people who had more than half a tank, as I did. So I called Petro, and found out that they had brought in trucks from out of the area to help with the demand, and that their coordinator had called all her generator customers a week before the storm and offered to top them up, an offer most of them had taken her up on. Smart company. So now they weren't dealing with a mass of people who all needed fills during a crisis. She was happy to take on new customers, while the other vendors were struggling to handle their existing customers. So I fired Paraco and hired Petro. She set me up for an inspection and certification of my tank (some kind of regulator test or something that they had to do before delivering to me) that day, and had a truck there the next morning. We were under 5 percent on the tank when the truck arrived, which is well below what I had understood to be required to generate enough pressure to run the generator, but we still had a running generator when Petro arrived to fill us. It all worked out. Had we not owned our tank, we would have been screwed. (As an aside, I later found out from my electrician/contractor that he had enough pull at Paraco to get his customers to the head of the line if they called him to complain, and he was sorry he hadn't checked with me. We were the only ones of his many customers that had had issues getting gas. That actually made me even angrier at Paraco: while they were telling me that they "had to serve the hospitals and nursing homes first", which is totally understandable, they were actually playing politics with who got gas and who didn't. So we are never ever going back to them.)
 
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