Bought expired soda CO2 tanks

[brad2157]

Long story short, I bought two 20lb CO2 tanks for $50 yesterday from a guy that bought an old restaurant and the previous owner left them in there. He was gutting the building and had no use for them. I was really uneducated about the tanks at the time, but did a lot of reading last night and this is what I have found. Both tanks need to be re-certified. One is an very old steel tank (shows certified dates as early as 1980 that I can see) and the other is aluminum (last certified in 2004 from what I can see). One was stamped CCE, which I now know is Coca-Cola Enterprises, the other has part of a pepsi sticker left on it, what hasn't finished falling off yet. I also now know that I've most likely wasted $50, as from what I gather, I likely will not be able to get them swapped out or get them re-certified & filled. Anyone else experienced anything like this? If so, what did were your options?

 

[day_trippr]

Take one to an AirGas fill station and see what happens...

Cherrs!

 

[WarEagleBrewer]

Why could you not get it re-certified? I know around here, there is a fire extinguisher company that does hydro testing for $25 (this is for scuba tanks, I assume CO2 are hydro tested too).

 

[Cincybeer]

My local welding shop exchanges tanks, If you have out of certification tank they charge you about $15 for the re cert fee... as well as the charge for the filled tank... You still come out ahead from buying a new tank !

 

[brad2157]

Why could you not get it re-certified? I know around here, there is a fire extinguisher company that does hydro testing for $25 (this is for scuba tanks, I assume CO2 are hydro tested too).

I'm just assuming places would not touch from what reading I looked at online. It has CCE stamped on top of the tank and it's painted solid red (guess that's what Coca-Cola does with all their tanks). Not sure if they will overlook that or even give it a second look.

 

[brad2157]

My local welding shop exchanges tanks, If you have out of certification tank they charge you about $15 for the re cert fee... as well as the charge for the filled tank... You still come out ahead from buying a new tank !

There is a large welding supply shop near me that is a large dealer of tanks/gases, so it wouldn't hurt for me to take them over and see what they would do.

 

[brad2157]

Also, the steel tank has some surface rust that I plan on lightly hand sanding down with a piece of sandpaper (no power sander, etc..) and spraying it with a grey metal primer. Anything wrong with doing that? Just don't want to do anything not allowed that will make them not want want to re-certify or swap it out.

 

[WarEagleBrewer]

First, paint it a different color. Matte silver will work. Second, nobody is going to come after you for having a tank with CCE stamped on it. They sell them all the time. I have an expired 20lb Pepsi tank I bought directly from the company. Luckily, I also have the receipt if anybody tries to give me grief. But just paint it and go trade it in. All they can tell you is "no". You might also be able to get it filled by someone filling paintball tanks. They may not be as picky about looking at the cert dates.

 

[WarEagleBrewer]

ACTUALLY........if you have a local Pepsi distributer near you, try swapping it out with them. Here it is $30 ish to swap one of their old tanks for a full one.

 

[thenugsmoustache]

I had a similar coke tank I took to an AirGas and the guy exchanged it no problem. He even noticed it was an old coke tank.