Yesterday evening when The Husband came home, I told him what the Blue Rhino customer service rep had told me about cutting back on the gas flow on the SkeeterVac. We went outside and did what she said to do: (1) turn off the gas, (2) unhook the gas line, (3) hold down the control button for a while to bleed out the remaining gas in the machine, (4) wait few minutes, and (5) hook everything back up, open the gas valve 1.5 turns, and re-light the thing. The machine lit right away. We didn't hear the fan running right away, but we checked it a few minutes later, and everything seemed to be working just fine.
This morning I went outside to check the trap and discovered that the machine was not running. I supposed it was an empty tank and decided that I would try to replace it, myself. We did not have a replacement tank, but the convenience store two miles up the road has them, and I intended to go get one. I came inside, pulled out the instruction manual, and went over the steps to install a replacement tank. The instructions say, "To operate you will need (1) precision-filled standard grill LP gas tank (20#) with external valve threads. Note: An empty standard grill LP gas tank weighs approximately 18 lbs. A precision-filled standard grill LP gas tank should weigh no more than 38 lbs."
Hmmm..."precision-filled."
I successfully un-hooked and removed the gas tank from the SkeeterVac and brought it inside to weigh it. The bathroom scales said it weighed 18.4 pounds, close enough to empty to go ahead and change it out, I figured. I took it to the convenience store to swap it for a full one. As I passed the replacement tank rack on my way into the store, I noticed a sign that said the tanks were filled to 15.4 lbs. I remembered the wording of the instructions: "precision-filled." I decided that I'd better take the empty take back to where we'd bought it. We'd told that place that we needed a 20# tank, and I supposed that's what we'd been given. So I climbed back into my Jeep and drove to another store, 5 miles away, to swap the tank.
A sticker on that rack said those tanks also contained 15.4 pounds of gas. I scratched my head. Maybe that's why our machine wasn't catching mosquitoes - maybe we'd bought the wrong size tank. I questioned a store employee about getting a 20# tank. He said they only sold the one size, but they ought to work. I said maybe I'd better try to find a 20# tank. He directed me to a place a few more miles up the road that re-fills empty tanks rather than swapping empty ones for full ones. Before I spoke to anyone in the store about filling the tank, I decided to check the label on the tank to see about its maximum capacity. If the numbers I saw stamped into the metal were the capacity numbers, the tank held a little over 17#. I scratched my head again. Where was I going to get a 20# gas tank? Then I noticed a toll-free number for Blue Rhino on the label. I decided to call them and ask whether I needed "precisely" 20 pounds of gas, and to ask if my less-than-20# tank might have been the reason why the machine wasn't catching any mosquitoes.
The customer service rep explained that 20# tanks generally contain a little over 15# of
gas. Dang...I could've used a tank from the first convenience store and saved myself all this running around.
As it turned out, I took the tank back to the place where we'd bought it, and swapped it for a full tank. But I'm still not understanding the whole "precisely-filled 20# tank" business.
In any case, the SkeeterVac is hooked up and running again, with the gas valve opened 1.5 turns and the bait cover only partially open (as the first customer service rep had suggested). I'll check it tomorrow to see if it's caught anything.
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