I need some advice for a friend who has obtained a vented propane Southern Burner heater for his greenhouse. He needs advice in connecting it. I use Southern Burners, but mine are natural gas. Can anyone advise...is it OK to just use the flex tubing used to connect stoves? Can you hook two small tanks together and open the second when the first one is low, or will the pressure in the two just equalize? Do you put the tank outside the greenhouse, or is it OK to be inside? Does anyone have any tips or a resource he could go to? He wants to be sure he does it right....thanks!

Hi BobW,

I can only answer one of your questions and that is about connecting two tanks together. They make a Regulator that automatically switches from one tank to the other, that is when one tank runs low on fuel it switches to the full tank. I would suggest that he talks with the local propane company for complete advice.

Thanks, Thomas!

Codes for your area may vary a bit but having the tank indoors is usually universally verboten. Flex is usually allowed, but not thru a wall or floor. Usually code requires black iron or in some cases the clad copper. I can back up my 100 gal cylinder by using 25# grill bottles if delivery is a problem, as was the case a couple of winters ago. The company did finally agree to give me a 40% fill provided I paid the delivery charge and the inflated prices. I have considered adding my own 100# cylinder as a back up, but have as yet to check out my contract.

In Indiana, I doubt that you have high altitude, but we put in a propane system for our greenhouse, and it turned out that in the thinner air, the units won't run. They auto shut off all the time because of a safety feature. We had to ditch the propane and right now we're using the higher cost electric ones.