I just went there and got both my 5 lb and 2.5 lb tanks filled. Total was $16.90 including the 3% fee for using plastic instead of cash.
Kind of a convoluted process. You go into the "showroom" w/o your tanks and pay. They don't like it if you are putting the tanks in the occupied area of a vehicle, so you want to do trunk of the car or back of the truck somehow - at least until you are filled and ready to leave. I was in a cargo van and that seemed to satisfy their safety paranoia somewhat. Then you take your receipt and go thru an automated gate into the yard behind the shop. Stop at the first roll-up door around the back and give the guy your tanks and ticket. He fills them and hands them back all frosty. You gotta drive back out the automatic gate which takes a minute to react when you pull up to it. Not sure if it's actually automatic or if somebody has to notice you want out and hit the button. Watch out for speeding forklifts.
Don’t be too critical of safety “paranoia.”
About 15 years ago I routinely went to a local outlet of a major gas supplier to get my bottles filled. They’d check the tare weight or the bottle, put it on an industrial scale and fill it to the weight of the gas. As I said, they did ‘industrial’ fills of virtually every gas imaginable in any capacity tank, even mixed gases if you wanted beer gas or nitrogen. They also did bottle exchange, but I was jealously possessive of my shiny aluminum tanks, especially my 5 lb one. They usually didn’t have 5# available for exchange unless you called ahead anyway, and were willing to wait a day or two to get one from the central distribution center. They’d always be heavy, ugly steel ones anyway.
So one day I load up my truck (king cab configuration) with my empty 5#er strapped in, drive 12 miles to the gas distributor, leave the bottle on the loading dock and head inside to pay. By the time I get back, the loader has my bottle filled and ready to go.
Looking back on the incident, there’s a bit of cryptic foreshadowing. He jokes about the aluminum bottle being so small and so light that the gas filler hoses and mechanism probably weighs more than the CO2 bottle. Obviously he’s more frequently filling those huge steel tanks mounted on roller wheels.
Anyway, it’s a hot summer day and I’m anxious to get home and hook up the gas to the kegerator and have a frosty one. I strap the bottle in the back seat and head on down the highway. A few minutes later I’m cruising down the Interstate in moderate traffic when suddenly there’s a muffled ’pop’ and the cab is engulfed in a fog. Immediately I “four-ganged” the electric windows to “Open,”correctly analyzing that the over-pressure frangible disk had burst and dumped all the CO2 into the enclosed space. At 70 MPH. In moderately heavy traffic.
The fog quickly cleared, and the CO2 induced ’brain fog’ was dissipating, and I’d somehow maintained not only control of my pickup but my lane as well, without loosing my wits, my consciousness or my life.
Gaseous CO2 is not considered HAZMAT, but although not toxic it is more readily absorbed in the blood stream and will displace oxygen. In a confined environment it can result in loss of consciousness. Luckily, disaster averted.
The cause was over-filling on a hot day, as well as my transporting it in an enclosed space. Had it been a bigger bottle (10# or 20#), and had I been in a regular sized pickup cab, the outcome may have been quite different. Although CO2 (unlike CO) won’t kill you outright, it can cause unconsciousness and eventual suffocation. It is odorless and tasteless (as is CO), and needs to be handled and stored
and transported in a well ventilated space. Maybe in a car, with all the windows rolled down? You decide.
I’ve since switched to bottle exchange rather than refilling for not only my 5# ‘portable’ but also my 10 and 20 pounders. Plus, the outlet no longer does on-site refilling.
Closest to me now is about 2 hours away.
