Business ProfileforAlpine Propane, LLC

Recieved letter dated Feb. 26 2024 that states they will be coming to take my tank due to lack of usage. I just got the tank filled in February 8. No where in my contract does it state that they will take your tank because if low usage it only states you will have to pay a rental fee if usage is below a certain amount. My contract states my rental fee is $53 however they have been charging me $100 all along. I found a new propane company now. They found the letter ridiculous. There is no propane tank shortage. The new company had no minimums and a cheaper tank rental fee then I was paying at Alpine. My suggestion would be to shop around elsewhere before giving any business to Alpine propane.

We understand how the customers feel. If we knew they were only going to use a low or no usage amount we wouldn't have even set them a tank in the first place. We are in the propane sales business. Not the tank rental business. Some people say they use our minimum 800 gallons for a 500 gallon tank so we set them a 500 gallon tank and they end up using 175 in a year. So we pick it back up the next year. I've been picking up tanks for over 35 years every spring for low or no usage. With today's cost's to do business we have to maximize our assets and the only asset we have is our tanks. Each tank has to run a minimum amount thru it each year for us to be able to keep it there. We tell the customers they have two options. Either buy their own tank or find one of the national company's to set them a tank. National company's have 10's of thousands of tanks so many times they will set a tank for someone with low usage. If they buy a tank we even offer to hook them up for free when we come to pick ours up. My ***** had a 1000 gallon tank and 2 years ago he only used 300 gallons. Not enough for us to downsize him to our smallest tank. A 1000 used to cost us $1,200 dollars and now they are around $4,800. So he got some one else to set him a tank and I picked mine up and set it somewhere else and the new customer used over ***** gallons thru that tank this year. He's happy and I'm happy. We can't afford to buy any tanks now since COVID hit so we need to maximize the gallons thru the tanks that we have. When the tanks in our yard are all set we will be out of tanks. But every year there are customers that didn't use any gas for some reason and those will be picked up and reset somewhere else where they use our minimum requirements. It's like a restaurant owner makes you wait to be seated because his only asset is his tables and seats. He can't have one guy walk in and sit at his only table for 8 because he likes the view. They put him at the bar or a table for 2 so they can save that table and those seats for a group of 8 people so he can maximize his assets.  Our lease states that customers with low or no usage will have their tanks picked up. We give the customer 2 to 3 months to figure it out so it's not like we leave them with nothing. We send out the letters in the spring making them aware that we are picking our tank up and what their options are and then it's summer time when we come out to get them unless they call us earlier telling us they have already made their arrangements. We try to help them find another supplier or buy their own tank before we come to pick ours up. We give them a full refund for any gas left in their tank when we pick it up provided that we get all of our equipment, tank, blocks and regualtors back in good condition.