When I bought my boat in Panama there was a propane tank connected up, and a spare. The gauge at the tank showed it to be near empty. I took it to a local guy who fills tanks and he picked it up and said it was nearly full and the gauge was wrong. I was still using it when I got to Fiji six months later, gauge stlll shows near empty. Who knows how much longer it will go before I need to go to the spare.
Absolutely. As an approved contractor carrying the correct insurance, the only yards that can say no are the closed exclusive yards that don't allow any outside trades, where it's a single business/yard combo. They can make you jump through a hoop of filling out a form with said information but that's a day or two. The only exception is to activities that are blanket banned for all trades in that area(commonly sandblasting/shooting paint) without express permission, documentation etc.
Propane in small tanks, as far as I know, is judged only by weight. Our large propane tank at our house has a mechanical gauge with a float that spins a dial (like a mechanical gasoline or diesel gauge).
Business liability is easy and cheap. Hell you can do it over the internet here now without even having to talk to a human, unless it involves boats it seems but even then it's not horrible. You need liability+workers insurance+ship repairers+(sometimes) a business license for the area. It's fairly involved to get the ship repairers, definitely a lot more hoops to jump through, and time. Not impossible, but say you were hauling out for a month of work, unlikely to be cost effective at least here. Some ship repairer's policies also cover the general liability, some don't.
The 20-pound horizontal tank on my old boat has a liquid level gauge. Not super-accurate. The pressure gauge is on the boat's regulator assembly.
Ship Repairers Liability required in NSW at least...
I haven't seen such a small tank with a gauge. So I stand corrected. I have only seen pressure gauges on the high-pressure side of the regulator (not permanently attached to the tank).
I might be telling you something you already know...
Nope. I didn't know that.
If I really need to know I will do this. It is a great idea if using a scale is not feasible (which is often the case on boats).
Yep.
Yep, pretty much a free for all at OC Marina. I keep my boat there.
Here they include that one. Actually I had a bit of a discussion with them as to why the hell a detailing company needed it, not really likely to impact vessel seaworthiness. Regardless, they require it to be in the yard. So, arbitrary or not, and often not enforced in DIY type yards, in places where they are restricting any non-professionals from doing it, at least knowing what can get around it might be handy. I've no experience in Australia, but where Jud/I are is close enough that the rules are the same.
We have fiberglass tanks, and you can kind of sort of see the liquid level if the sun hits it just right. Agree that the regulator gauge gives you no useful information about how much is left.
