North Central Texas homeowners love using propane to heat and power their homes. This eco-friendly, affordable, and versatile fuel comes with a lot of advantages. You can count on propane to fuel your heating system, stovetop, hot water heater, and so much more. Like with any home heating fuel, there are some tips you need to know to keep your home safe from season to season.
Preventative Propane Safety
Understand Your Tank
Familiarizing yourself with and understanding your tank and its general functions are very important. You should know how to read your tank gauge and turn off your gas supply. Regularly monitoring your propane levels and ordering fuel when your tank reaches 25% will help prevent the risk of running out of fuel, which can cause costly situations and serious safety hazards.
Educate the Members of Your Household
Make sure your family or any tenants are aware of and understand these safety precautions. This includes proper measures for storage like keeping flammable items away from your heating system and tank and proper handling of cylinders. Never store cylinders in an enclosed building and be sure to make an evacuation plan with your family.
Take Care of Your Appliances
Schedule regular maintenance from Enderby for your heating system and propane-powered appliances. Scheduling annual maintenance and tune-ups will promote the safe and unobstructed operation of your heating system and improve fuel efficiency. Keep an eye on the flame in your gas-range stove. If it burns yellow instead of blue, that can indicate an issue with your burner inlet.
What to Do If You Smell Propane:
Propane is naturally colorless, odorless, and non-toxic. A scent is added to help detect if a leak has occurred. If you smell propane:
- Extinguish any open flames. Do not turn any devices on or off. This includes light switches, phones, computers, flashlights, or appliances.
- Alert all inhabitants and inform them to leave the home or commercial building immediately.
- Do not try to find the source of the leak.
- Be prepared to identify your location and whether the smell is inside or outside of the building.
- Call your local propane provider from the closest building landline or from your cell phone away from the leak site. If you cannot get in touch with an Enderby Gas representative, call 911 or your local fire department immediately.
- Do not return to the building until a qualified technician says it is safe to do so.
If you have any additional questions about propane safety or need to schedule your annual tune-up, contact your energy professionals at Enderby today! Don’t forget that we offer propane storage tank monitoring to help you keep track of what’s in your storage container. Give us a call to take advantage of this new technology that can improve your comfort and add convenience to your routine.