An outage in July is an inconvenience. An outage in January, up around Pecos or Glorieta or on the east side of the Sandias, is a different problem entirely. Wet snow and wind take lines down in this country, and when they do, the well pump stops, the furnace blower stops, and the house starts getting cold with a full propane tank sitting right outside.
That last part surprises people, so it is worth explaining plainly.
A full tank is not the same as heat
Most modern propane furnaces need electricity. Not for the fuel – for the ignition and the blower that moves warm air through the house. No power means no blower, and the heat stays in the furnace instead of reaching the rooms. The tank can be at 80 percent and the house still gets cold.
The same goes for water. If you are on a well, the pump is electric. When the power drops, so does the water.
This is the gap a standby generator fills.
What a propane standby generator actually does
A propane standby generator runs off the same fuel supply you already heat with. It sits outside, it starts on its own when the power goes out, and it keeps running as long as there is fuel in the tank. Nobody has to be home, and nobody has to go outside in a storm to start anything.
What it does not do is run for free. It is a second, real demand on the same tank. A household comfortable on a certain number of fills a season may not be once a generator is added and a bad winter gives it work to do. That is not a reason to skip the generator – it is a reason to talk to us before the install, so tank size and delivery schedule get set for the new load instead of being discovered in February. If you already have one and nobody revisited your schedule after it went in, call us.
The two numbers, again
A tank fills to about 80 percent by design, because propane is a liquid and the liquid needs room to expand. A "full" 500-gallon tank holds roughly 400 gallons.
And do not let the gauge drop below 20 percent. Below that you have no cushion if a storm closes a road – and a tank that runs all the way out has to have a leak check done by a qualified technician before the system goes back in service. On a place with a generator, that cushion is doing double duty: it is your heat and your backup power at the same time.
Do not improvise during an outage
This is the part we would rather over-say than under-say.
Never run a generator, a grill, a camp stove, or any other fuel-burning appliance inside a house, a garage, a shed, or a crawl space. Never use a cooking appliance to heat a room. Carbon monoxide from any of those has killed people during outages, and it gives no warning you can smell.
Do not try to wire a portable generator into your house circuits. That is a licensed electrician’s job, every time, and doing it wrong puts line crews at risk as well as you.
Every level of your home should have a working carbon monoxide alarm. Test them now, before the season, not after the lights go out.
If you smell an odor like rotten eggs – that smell is added to propane on purpose so leaks can be found – or if a CO alarm sounds: get everyone outside first, call 911 from a safe place, then call us. Do not look for the leak yourself. Do not go back inside until responders say it is safe.
What to do before the season
A short list, and none of it takes long:
- Get the tank, regulator, and connections looked at, especially if it has been a while.
- Make sure our driver has a clear, drivable path to the fill point – a gate that opens, a dog put up, and enough room for a heavy truck.
- Get the tank filled while the roads are still easy.
- If watching a gauge during a storm is not something you want to be doing, ask us to put you on automatic keep-full. We track how you actually use propane and come before you get low.
- If a generator went in this year, tell us, so your delivery schedule reflects it.
Weather sets the schedule
We run out of three offices. Moriarty covers the Estancia Valley and out toward Edgewood, Tijeras, Cedar Crest, Sandia Park and Sedillo. Mountainair covers Estancia and Willard. Pecos covers Glorieta, Rowe and Ribera and up into the mountains. Three different sets of weather in one week, and the mountain end is always last to clear.
We get to people as fast as it is safe to. What we cannot do is open a closed road. Being full before the storm is the part in your control.
Call whichever office is closest.
Moriarty – 2502 U.S. Route 66 W, Moriarty, NM 87035 – (505) 407-2260
Mountainair – 711 West Broadway, Mountainair, NM 87036 – (505) 847-1136
Pecos – 274 Glorieta Hwy, Pecos, NM 87552 – (505) 757-0977