Will I Blow Up-Or Not?

Over the years, there have been a few posts regarding using these magnetic oil pan heaters to keep your propane tanks warm on your fish house. A couple of people have said they were going to try one, but nobody has said they have. I’m a little hesitant to put anything electric in an enclosed space with propane, will I blow up? Mine is a 500 watt size.

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I personally wound not use a magnetic block heater

Personally I think it’s safer than trouble light/100w bulb. I’ve used this block heater on propane tank in extreme cold. Worked fine. Also had good luck in a pinch activating a couple hand warmers and taping them to the regulator.

A propane tank can handle a lot of pressure before it ruptures but I dont think I would use a magnetic heater that centers heat in one area, use a blanket designed for that purpose, google propane tank blanket.
But, to power that blanket you will need a generator, and if you have to have that why not use an electric heater?? unless you find a blanket that is battery powered but I wonder how quickly they will drain the battery??

Google propane tank bleve, I had to learn about that when I delivered propane for a co-op I use to work at years ago.

What size tanks and how many do you have? Just getting bigger tanks and/or two of them might mean you don’t have to heat it. A 40lb tank can deliver about 75% more btu than a 20lb and since it drops as the tank empties the more you start with the better. If you heat it things like powerblankets, made for propane, are absurdly expensive but Kats make battery wraps that should work and I think would be better than the oil pan heater.

I have been researching those electric blankets that are made for it, but the cheapest ones that I don’t think I’d even wanna buy are about $125. The real ones are closer to 175 or $200. This last week here in Central Minnesota when we got to 25 below, and I know propane is supposed to slow down to 40 or 45° below zero, but I had a heckuva time getting the house up to temperature. It took a couple hours. I had to leave Red Lake one year at about -30 and big wind. I use 2-40 pounders.

This is the battery wrap I was talking about, never used it myself though it’s just something I looked at before: https://www.etrailer.com/p-KH22300.html

If you already two 40s you could draw off both instead of a changeover regulator if that’s what you have now. Out of ideas beyond that since I assume you can’t use 100lb.

When I was running commercial construction sites & I saw we would still be on LP in Dec-Feb I would order a vaporizer for each tank / heater.
I was working on the additon for Aitkin HS in the mid 70s for Witcher. Just a young pup. There were (3) 1000 gal tanks sitting clustered in back of the job on a side street. The Supt. rigged up a weed burner on a T off one of the tanks. The was some 4×8 plyboard rigged to try to aim the heat & control the wind. There was swirling wind one day that burned thru a rubber hose & school was evacuated. The flame off the pressure relief valve letting go was a 30 ft high blowtorch for spprox 10 sec of every 4 minutes. Local FD guy, Artie, donned a nomex suit and mitts. Walked up and shut off the supply valve while the FD made it rain.

Buy an electric back warmer (heating pad). They have a strap and wrap half way around the tank.

They work great and are like $30 lol

I run a electric propane tank wrap heater and a electric back heating pad around the regulator. The tank wrap I purchased was at Milaca Unclaimed Freight. It was like $90 last year, think they went up this year. Works great and the 30* tank empties completely even in negative temps

I have a magnetic heater I always carry with me in case of propane issues. This weekend on leech I ended up taping 2 big hand warmers around my regulator and wrapped a towel around it. No issues and it was like -40 the one night

What about a cordless heated jacket or sweater. Runs of a battery. You could put it around a 20 lbs or multiple 1 lbs. I personally have only had an issue with propane one time. That was last year in -40.

I don’t own a wheeled fish house. Why aren’t they made with a sealed (inside and out) hole by the propane tanks that you can open and blow warm air out onto the propane tanks. Throw a couple blankets over the tanks and it should work right? Is it keeping the holes sealed tightly so no crap gets in while traveling the reason they’re not made that way?

Nodakk wrote:

The tank wrap I purchased was at Milaca Unclaimed Freight. It was like $90 last year, think they went up this year. Works great and the 30* tank empties completely even in negative temps

This is what I use no other items needed. Well I wrap it all in a moving blanket after plugging in just the one tank heater, it keeps the regulator warm also. Unclaimed freight has them like Nodak said $89.00 last year.

Thanks guys, $79.98 this year.

3rdtryguy wrote:

Thanks guys, $79.98 this year.

That must be the only thing I’ve ever seen go down in price

I run the Kats block heater shown and it Works perfect. Barely gets the tank warm but enough to run the tank empty in -30deg.

I run the same block heater and have never had an issue. Do they get hot? Sure, but you’re not going to go from almost freezing propane to so hot it will explode when it is -25 out and blowing 20. Metal conducts heat so well that the entire tank would need to heat up quite a bit before you conduct enough heat to the propane to be unsafe.

I guess I gotta go full gas nerd on this one. You guys asked for it…. I know a thing or two about explosive gasses. Although I don’t think those block heaters are listed as “intrinsically safe”, but if I remember right they are epoxy filled with magnets on the outside of the epoxy. Only source of ignition would be the plug end. So if the gas did get overheated, and expanded too much, the regulator should release (vent) gas at a rate that would protect your gas piping from being over pressurized or creating problems with down stream appliances. So as long as there is no source of ignition inside the propane enclosure, you should be safe even if it does vent from regulator to release excess pressure. The cord on those are are like 3’ long. So keep plug outside the propane enclosure.