We use a few methods. Most customers are on a degree day schedule. Degree days are a measure of how cold the weather is. Our computer computes your K factor, which is like miles per gallon on a car; it is the rate at which you burn fuel for heat, which is correlated to the weather. Then we determine whether or not you have non-heat related appliances like water heaters, and we build in a gallon/day formula for that. The computer system takes all these factors and generates a ticket accordingly. We try to make a delivery when your tank is 2/3 empty. While this may sound confusing, and is by no means perfect, it has been around for a very long time and is quite accurate.

The other method is called a Julian method; with this method, we deliver to you every certain number of days. This works well if you have a large mix of non-heat related appliances, or a swimming pool heater. More information can be found by Googling degree day schedules.

Absolutely NOT! We only add sales tax to the price of fuel.

No, this just means that the delivery driver verified that when the fuel was delivered, odorant was present in the fuel. This is a safety requirement. It is a good thing!

We buy our fuel and we add a set per gallon margin to it. The only differences are tank size or lease/own status. Basically, on any given day, everyone with the same set up (ie: all customers with a 500 gallon owned tank), will pay the exact same price. You pay a little more per gallon for a smaller tank, a little less for a larger tank. We don’t charge different prices to different customers just because we can; we don’t feel that that’s fair.

Simple answer, no. As explained in “How do you price your fuel?”, we like to treat everyone fairly and equally. While some companies try to come in with “teaser rates” to try to gain business, our thought is if we can’t give our existing customers that special price, we shouldn’t give it to others. Our only discount is on the first fill up on a tank that is purchased or leased from Acme and our prompt pay discount of 5 cents per gallon.

The short answer is sometimes yes, and sometimes no. We base our pricing on our wholesale cost. Sometimes it’s cheaper in the summer, sometimes it’s not. It just depends on what’s going on in the world and local markets. Some companies will artificially lower their prices in order to “trick” people into thinking they are a bargain, only to raise it dramatically in the winter. Again, we simply add our margin to our cost and do not play unfair pricing games.

This is by far the most commonly asked question, and by far the most difficult to answer. There are so many factors involved. Mainly the weather, your households habits, the efficiency of your home and equipment, the size of your house, what appliances you have, etc. Literally, you could take 10 identical homes with 10 different families, and while their rate of consumption may go up and down together based on the weather, their individual family consumption will be different due to different habits.

This explanation will help you to figure out a baseline of your consumption.

1 gallon of propane has approximately 92,500 Btu’s (British Thermal Unit – a measure of energy content) in it. You can calculate how much your appliances will burn by knowing the Btu’s of the appliance and the Btu’s of propane. For instance, if your gas fireplace is 30,000 Btu’s, you will burn approximately 1 gallon for every 3 hours it runs (92,500 divided by 30,000).

Average Btu’s of different appliances and the average annual consumption for a family of four;

• Furnace – 36,000 – 150,000 Btu’s; Average annual consumption based on “average winter weather” 300-1200 gallons
• Water Heater (standard) – 30,000-50,000 Btu’s; Average annual consumption – 300 gallons
• Water Heater (on demand) – 100,000-200,000; Average annual consumption – 200 gallons
• Clothes Dryer – 20,000 – 25,000 Btu’s; Average annual consumption – 60 gallons
• Stovetop – 60,000 (15,000/burner); Avg annual consumption – 25 gallons
• BBQ – 30,000 – 36,000; 10 gallons

1. Propane, sometimes known as liquefied petroleum gas, or LPG,  is a gas normally compressed and stored as a liquid. It is nontoxic, colorless, and virtually odorless.

1. The short answer is yes, propane can technically freeze at -306.4 degrees Fahrenheit (or -188 degrees Celsius). But what is more likely to happen than your propane tank freezing is that your propane can no longer vaporize. When the temperature gets below -44 degrees Fahrenheit (-42.2222 degrees Celsius) the propane will no longer boil. Seeing as the coldest weather conditions ever recorded in Chehalis, Washington is -48 degrees, you likely won’t have this issue. But if you do, you can fix it by getting a propane tank heater. In hot weather conditions, you should not leave your propane in direct sunlight as the hotter the tank gets, the more pressure there will be inside the tank.