Same here in PA. I called early this week to get my 1000 gallon tank filled and was told that they could not sell me any right now. Hopefully only a temporary shortage, something to do with transportation issues, not production. However the cost is most likely going up big time because of this shortage.

I wouldn't care so much if I was just needing it for march or so, but I'm heating a 30x30 to overwinter bananas and tropical plants and baskets and other plants to do cuttings of for spring. I have bananas with fruit, a key lime tree, 300 elephant ears and probably 200 banana plants that I was growing bigger over winter for spring sales. Giant calla lilies in bloom to be divided for spring, water hyacinths, and all kinds of stuff in there. This is really stressing me out.
I usually use 3-4 500 gallon tanks overwintering this stuff, and as we open our other 2 greenhouses in the spring, then we really use a lot. I wonder how long before we're going to be able to get it? My supplier acted like he didn't know.

Here is a link that might be useful:

May I ask what you are paying per gallon?

Here in Lafayette, IN, people are paying $5.29 per gallon.

How's the price of kerosene? could you use some heaters to help out? I don't know, just suggesting.

I feel for you folks heating anything with propane. $5.29 a gallon - YIKES!

Anything that you can use to help reduce fuel usage should help. Ideas to consider:

1. Create heat sinks to store the heat. 55 gallon barrels filled with ???

2. Use alternate unvented heat sources: kerosene to reduce the propane usage.

3. Pellet wood stove (vented) - can maintain temp/burn for long periods of time.

Other ideas to consider:

1. Use row cover create another layer of insulation.

2. Consolidate plants into fewer greenhouses or temporarily wall off unused space.

If you use any kind of temporary/emergency heat be care - there are consequences. Check out the link below. It has an excellent section on using unvented heaters.

Here is a link that might be useful: Basics for Heating and Cooling Greenhouses for Tobacco Transplant Production

If you could find an independent trucking firm that would haul to you, not sure if that would even be possible, but at a refinery near us a trucker friend told me that almost every truck in the line to fill is from the east coast.

I am going to be the bearer of bad news, I would really be finding other ways to heat what you have now. Spring is a long time away and until they get some of these pipeline issues figured out, supply is going to be very tight and prepare to pay through the nose. I have heard from $5 to $8 a gallon!

Jay

Thanks for all the suggestions and help. I really needed to talk to someone about it that would understand. People who don't do this kind of work just don't get it... So what if you run out of LP? So what if you can't get any in time to grow your plants for spring? What? you don't have petunias this year? How come? What do you mean you start growing them in January from seed?
We have been using kerosene heaters in there the last two nights to make the LP last longer. The problem with those is that kerosene is 4.79 a gallon right now and my heaters keep going off in the middle of the night when they get to 1/2 a tank left. I don't know if the greenhouse is too tight and the air gets used up or what. It was -18 mon night and -14 Tuesday night so that doesn't help any at all...Thank god it was sunny during the day both days!
It's a long time till spring so I figured if I just kept these plants alive it really didn't matter too much what they looked like right now. they have some time to recover.
My dad came up with a good idea yesterday afternoon. We have natural gas in the house and the garage. He has a buddy that installs/trenches gas lines underground and he is going to come and see if he can do us a temporary natural gas line from the garage to the greenhouse, and we are going to convert this greenhouse from lp to gas.
We are down to 15% in our tank.
I was locked in price at $2.20 per gallon and getting a .15 off of that because I was their biggest customer. I'm sure if they end up bringing me this 50 gallons it will not be at the lock in price, I think they are paying more than that for it now.
The plan now is to convert all the greenhouses to natural gas before spring comes with a permanent line and separate meter, so hopefully I can get that done before I need to open the next greenhouse in 3 weeks, if the weather breaks enough to do it. these guys coming to look at it are pretty old, and I don't know if they would want to work in the cold. I might have to get them to recommend someone else (younger) who might want to do it even now.

watch the price of natural gas before you switch. i heard its price is flying too.

Anything petroleum based is gonna cost.

I think the oil companies are gonna eventually kill themselves. They just do not care that folks can not afford it.

I would strongly recommend rocket stoves. Do a search. Pretty darn cool.

For anyone interested, a thread from another forum

Here is a link that might be useful: rocket stoves in greenhouse

I heard this morning that a person had a delivery that was $6.15 per gallon. People are buying up electric heaters to heat their houses.

I'm sure that the propane people and others that don't have a greenhouse, will say something like "it's not a house, so it not important". I don't agree with that thought, but I'm sure there will people thinking that.

Personally, I'm glad we changed over to electric heat in our house, and haven't tried to heat the greenhouse.

Sandy, the older guys might do it before any younger person would. I know hubby and his brother (10 years older) would have, just because it needed done. Don't image that just cause a person is older, they will work slower or faster.

Marla

This post was edited by myfamilysfarm on Thu, Jan 30, 14 at 10:55

What's your electric service like in the greenhouse? If you are going to dig a trench to run a gas line, you could also upgrade your service enough to run electric heat. The cable will lay in the same trench. You can wire off your house panel to a sub-panel in the greenhouse.

We are beginning to see a run of wood here in SW ohio. I suppose as people switch from propane to wood heat.

I do not like the rumor of Natural gas going up. I wonder what happened to all that surplus they said was going on in November?

They came by and since it's supposed to be a little warmer, above zero anyway, they are going to run a temp line above ground, and then we're going to get all the greenhouses hooked up and trenches in before march. So this may all work out yet. I just will need heat until then to keep it going.
I think the kerosene I got at the gas station must have been bad. It made the wick get all hard and crunchy and it won't burn for long, only about half a tank. I'm going to get some more somewhere else.
But since the weather is a few degrees warmer, the propane is lasting a little longer. We only used 3% yesterday, so we are just a shade less than 20% going into the weekend. Hopefully it stays warmer and we will get just a little sun during the day each day so it doesn't run both day and night.
Oh and I didn't mean because they were older that they wouldn't do a good job. I just meant it might be too cold for them to be out working ...I don't want anyone to get hurt or too cold etc. they're friends of dads and in their 70s and I just didn't want anything to happen to them. It's definitely not worth that to me.
I talked to a really big greenhouse place yesterday. They can't get any propane till March, and then they were promised the supply would be loosening up. They only do plugs so that's no problem for them.

It means that plants will either be smaller or more expensive, or both. Just like everything else.

I just have a backyard 20 by 30 greenhouse so my situation is a bit different than yours - I've found the only kerosene that never causes any problems with the wick is the super expensive stuff from Home Depot. It comes in 2.5 gallon containers, two per box at $44 each box. Any other type of kero I've tried has damaged my burner or my wick (often on the coldest nights when I need it the most).

Also know that burning kerosene emits Ethylene gas which can damage certain plants (most notably Impatiens and tomatoes).

I use kerosene mostly as a back up. My main heater is an old wood burning stove that came with the house. Firewood is free for me but it is of poor quality so I have to manage the fire all evening and every 2-3 hours during the night. I'm not a pleasant person during the coldest part of winter.

With my kerosene heater, I could and did put a large pot of water on top. When the heater ran out of fuel, the water was still boiling and helped to keep the room that I had it in warmer a bit longer. It would work with any heat source that you could put a big pan on top of.

I'd like to try one of the oil-filled electric heaters with stacks of concrete blocks around and over it.

1. there is not a shortage of propane.
2. the problem is getting it to the end user. pipeline can't move it fast enough and trucks come out of Conway Kansas are hauling it 8- 12 hours trips to suppliers 10000 gallon at a time. that 1 transport load will fill 20 -25 houses.

we need to upgrade pipelines to get energy products where and when we need it. note to enviormentalist... build pipelines or pay high prices and worry about running out all winter. and remember, this is an election year!!!

Lets not get political and most winters are not like this and we don't usually have a "shortage" and the price gouging on the part of the sellers. I wonder how many distributors will be sued for gouging?

receiving 250 gallons of propane today. price is up 60 cents per gallon from last winter. $3.09. Looking into a pellet stove.