CO2 botttle weigh

[Kerry Alexander]

I just had my system checked by a local company. He weighed the 75lb CO2 bottle and it weighted about 75lbs. That is all his scale would go to.
I think I saw a post that the 75lb bottle should weight about 220 lbs full.
What should it weigh?
Kerry
1969 50MY

 

[MikeP]

Isn't the "full" weight stamped on the bottle?

Incidentally, unless you are using the boat for hire, it is perfectly legal to weigh the bottle yourself and notate that on the tag. It's also a darn sight easier than removing it. A bathroom scale will serve. No other check is necessary - if it weighs full, it will work if released!

There is a requirement for a periodic hydro check. I don't recall the time interval and I think it's a silly requirement for a tank that is sitting there at full weight. Why? Because they have to release the CO2 in the tank in order to test it above the normal pressure to verify that it will hold the pressure of the CO2 that was in the tank, being held just fine, until they released it.

Oh well...

 

[Genesis]

TECHNICALLY the hydro requirement only applies to the tank being FILLED or transported in interstate commerce - that is, its illegal to fill a tank with an expired hydro or to stick one on a truck and drive it somewhere. It is not illegal to HAVE a full tank with an expired hydro.

HOWEVER, its pretty dumb not to keep the hydro up. A tank which ruptures (and they CAN) will blow significant parts of your boat to bits. A "star rated" tank must be hydroed every 10 years - but the star rating is only valid in "non-corrosive" environments (which doesn't apply to boats); the standard interval is 5 years.

Hydros are cheap - $20 or so. They must be done at a certified place (most reasonable size towns have one); just take the tank there and have it done. Then take it to a gas supply house (e.g. Airgas) and have it recharged. CO2 is cheap - there's no cost reason to blow this off.

 

[UNIQUE_NAME]

i too have a co2 bottle i would like to have re-certified. i've looked at it a few times trying to figure out how to remove it. this may sound silly but i'm afraid to touch it without any instructions. is this something that can be done safely by a fairly mechanical person or does it need a "qualified" person?

thanks,
jim

 

[Genesis]

You have to close the valve and remove the actuator. There IS risk involved in that if you accidentally set it off there is a high probability of serious injury or worse occurring to you.... and the tank is quite heavy (~200lbs or so)

 

[MikeP]

Removing the head is easy - just a large nut to unscrew. I've had the head off mine several times while checking the system to be sure the trigger mechanism will fire. You may need to buy or borrow a sufficiently large crescent wrench. Once the head is off there is little danger of releasing the CO2. Somewhere near the bottle, held with a clamp or something, there should be a screw-on cap for the bottle. With the head removed and the cap screwed on the only way you could release the CO2 is with a shot from a large caliber rifle! The only problem is, as Karl said, they are pretty darned heavy. Depending on access they can be a real handful to move in/out of the boat. Several goons will be necessary to remove/install it.

 

[Kerry Alexander]

My bottle has 75 lbs stamped on it.
Should it weigh 75 lbs full or is that the weight of the bottle empty?
Kerry

 

[Genesis]

How big is the bottle?

 

[luckydave215]

Considering their benefit, fire systems are dirt cheap to have serviced. My insurance company wanted my system re certified, and it only cost me $75 to have it done. The tech weighed the bottle, tested the system and all it's associated devices, and attached a new cert to the control and bottle, as well as mailing a copy of the cert to my insurer. Can't beat that for $75.

 

[MikeP]

A "75 Pound" CO2 bottle is about 5 feet tall and around a foot in diameter. The "75" pounds is the weight of the CO2 charge in the bottle when the bottle is full. So an empty "75 pound" bottle is 75 pounds lighter than a full bottle. Either one, full or empty, is too heavy for me to lift!

I thought that the full weight was stamped on the bottles but I was looking at ours a while ago and only the charge weight (75) is stamped.

 

[Genesis]

Those are roughly the size of a "T" cylinder, and the cylinder, charged, is significantly north of 200lbs

 

[luckydave215]

You guys are correct on the bottle weight. The tech that checked my system used an ultrasonic probe to measure the liquid level, eliminating the need to wrestle that monster out of the boat. The bottle was still in hydro, so...........

 

[Kerry Alexander]

OK, I guess I need to have a CO2 charge to my bottle. It weighed about 75 lbs on the scale.
Thanks for the info.
Kerry

 

[pmurphy]

I have a '72 53MY with the CO2 system. My bottle measures about 5 ft high. It was hydo'd and refilled 2004. A paper tag on the bottle states that it weighed 186 lbs full. Based on other postings here and in other threads it seems like that weight might be a little light???? I'm seeing most say theirs weigh 225 ish. Could it be that the outfit that filled it didn't put enough in?

 

[magnawake]

I'm going through the same thing with my bottle this week. Stamped on the side of my bottle, there is a full and empty weight. mine states 128 full, and 87 empty ( as I remember). It holds 35 lbs of Co2. I know those numbers dont add up, maybe I miss quoted, but it does say that on the side (stamped ), not on a tag. Thats where they get the true weight. If it weighs any less than whats on the bottle as full weight, then it leaked out over the years. I read other post as well, its not cheap. I'm paying $340, for removal and re-hyro and recharge, reinstall and test. Of course if they just come there, remove it from the system, weight it, then put it back, test the heat sensor, you might get by for $150, if your lucky. NFPA chapter 12 states every 12 years for the hydro, unless its been fired off, then its every 5years. Keep me posted.

 

[flydixie1415]

220 pounds sound correct for both tank and gas. We just had our tank removed from the boat for hydrostatic testing. Two men removed the tank from our 56 Hatteras, and to say the least they didn't make it off the boat without stopping along the way!

 

[pmurphy]

It turns out my bottle was stamped with two weights, full @ 190 and empty @ 115. When I had it inspected, it weighed 187, which I am told is therefore in compliance. To be in compliance, a bottle must be within 10% of the full charge, which allows for a difference of 7.5 lbs (10% of the 75 lbs of CO2). Therefore, anything above 182.5 lbs is good to go.
Even though the bottle was good, I had a problem with the firing mechanism. It wouldn't trigger the firing pin, manually or by heating the biscuits. Finding out replacements are no longer available, I decided to tear the unit apart and see if it could be fixed. (The fire service company claimed it couldn't be rebuilt). By the way, I have a unit manufactured by Norris Industries. Anyway, it turns out that a bracket located in the guts of the unit was bent, most likely from someone trying to reset the unit by turning the knob in the wrong direction (clockwise, the wrong way, instead of counterclockwise). After straightening the bracket and reassembling, everything worked perfectly (manually and by heating up the biscuits).

 

[SKYCHENEY]

It turns out my bottle was stamped with two weights, full @ 190 and empty @ 115. When I had it inspected, it weighed 187, which I am told is therefore in compliance. To be in compliance, a bottle must be within 10% of the full charge, which allows for a difference of 7.5 lbs (10% of the 75 lbs of CO2). Therefore, anything above 182.5 lbs is good to go.
Even though the bottle was good, I had a problem with the firing mechanism. It wouldn't trigger the firing pin, manually or by heating the biscuits. Finding out replacements are no longer available, I decided to tear the unit apart and see if it could be fixed. (The fire service company claimed it couldn't be rebuilt). By the way, I have a unit manufactured by Norris Industries. Anyway, it turns out that a bracket located in the guts of the unit was bent, most likely from someone trying to reset the unit by turning the knob in the wrong direction (clockwise, the wrong way, instead of counterclockwise). After straightening the bracket and reassembling, everything worked perfectly (manually and by heating up the biscuits).

Scary that it wasn't operational. Glad to hear you got it fixed and didn't have to scrap it.

 

[MikeP]

That's why it's so important to check out the system - a full bottle doesn't mean diddly if the system won't fire.

When we bought our boat the system was "inactivated" by the PO by partially unscrewing the firing mechanism so that if triggered, the firing pin would not strike the [whatever the thing it hits is called]. He had done this because his grandkids had twice triggered the system. But, of course, he had forgotten all about that and the partially-unscrewed firing mechanism looked perfectly normal on the bottle. So I had the boat for nearly a year with a non-functional but fully charged CO2 bottle. The only reason I discovered it was due to posts on this site which got me to thinking, "I should check out the fire system..."

 

[rsmith]

That's why it's so important to check out the system - a full bottle doesn't mean diddly if the system won't fire.

When we bought our boat the system was "inactivated" by the PO by partially unscrewing the firing mechanism so that if triggered, the firing pin would not strike the [whatever the thing it hits is called]. He had done this because his grandkids had twice triggered the system. But, of course, he had forgotten all about that and the partially-unscrewed firing mechanism looked perfectly normal on the bottle. So I had the boat for nearly a year with a non-functional but fully charged CO2 bottle. The only reason I discovered it was due to posts on this site which got me to thinking, "I should check out the fire system..."

Knowing those 2 kids I could see that.