How to monitor your RV’s propane tank levels
Today’s review is of the Lippert Lippert LP tank sensor tank sensor. You can read this whole story or just know that this is absolutely going on my list of must have RV gadgets. Period. End of story.
It’s a universal truth in the world of towable RVs where there is but one way to determine that you don’t have any propane left. It happens somewhere in the middle of the night on the coldest night you’ve encountered on any camping trip ever and you wake up with icicles dangling from your eyelashes.
What the heck? The furnace was working when you went to bed. In fact, you had to turn it down because even your spouse commented on how warm it was.
But at some point in time in the middle of the night you ran out of propane and now it’s Sunday on a holiday weekend, one of the few times you get to get away from the rat race, and you’re out of gas. No cooking. No fridge. No furnace.
Placing the magnetic sensor on the bottom of our propane tank.
Sorry, Charlie.
I can say this wasn’t me and it’s actually happened more often than I care to think about. My current method for dealing with it was to only operate on one tank until that one runs out and then switch tanks.
Lippert OneControl app showing tank levels on our two propane tanks
You know, in the middle of the night with the whole icicles and such happening. But at least I have the second tank.
Now I do have the GaStop and there are gauges on the top, but these essentially only measure pressure and aren’t exactly a quantity level indicator. Still, I do like the GaStop and moved them to my new RV first thing.
But, really, what I was hoping somebody would invent is what has come out of Lippert, the same folks who may have built the chassis and furniture and so much else in your RV. In fact Lippert has an ever increasing catalog of stuff we absolutely must have and this is at the top of that list.
What is the Lippert LP tank monitor?
Essentially the Lippert LP tank sensor is a little magnetic disk with some sort of electronic magic in it that gets attached to the bottom of your propane tank and tells you how much propane is in the tank. It’s that simple.
But there is more. This device works with Lippert’s OneControl app which has all sorts of functionality that it can provide.
You can connect to some newer RVs and control lighting, slide rooms, awnings and more. The list of both factory-installed and aftermarket devices continues to grow under the purview of this app which makes sense considering that Lippert is absolutely the leading supplier of parts to the RV industry.
In fact I’m sure that the number of things you can operate with this app will grow since Lippert also acquired Furrion which makes things like stoves, refrigerators, air conditioners, televisions and much more for the RV industry.
The settings tab in the Lippert OneControl app where you set tank alert thresholds and name the tanks along with specifying the size.
How it works
Essentially it’s pretty simple. You download the OneControl app (if you haven’t already) and then press a button on the LP sensor five times. From there you press and hold that button again and add the device to the OneControl app.
You can add more than one, I have one on the bottom of each of my two propane tanks.
From there you flip the tank over, apply a dollop of included grease to the sensor and you’re almost ready to go.
Lippert does include two different riser feet for the bottom of the tanks to lift them just a tad and provide some distance between the sensor and the metal plate the tanks sit on. There are two different heights depending on your tank, we installed the smaller of the two.
The sensor attaches magnetically to the bottom of each tank. Flip the tank back over onto its new feet and wait five minutes. Pretty soon you know just how much propane is in each tank.
In the app you have the option of describing the sensors with selectable names such as RV Tank 1 and RV Tank 2 along with a number of other choices.
You can also set the sensor to alert you to specific tank levels, so I have mine set to warn me when we’re at 25 percent. Figuring that I can switch to the second tank, this seems like a good choice but the number is your choice.
Plus it
While the metal feet that Lippert included with this were okay, Peggy found a round plastic disc that goes under the entire propane tank that I like even better. At some point in refilling the tanks I had lost one of the little metal feet and so we got the rubber “donut” for under the tank. This provides a bit of cushioning for the tank and also doesn’t scratch-up the metal platform the tanks sit on.
I don’t care too much about the scratches but the rust that follows does bother me. The plastic disc doesn’t make that happen.
My thoughts
As an RVer I can’t believe this isn’t something that comes standard with every travel trailer sold, but you can fix that by simply getting these yourself at the Lippert store.
These aren’t cheap at $49.95 each but, then, some things are just worth the money. I was really happy with how well these worked and how easy they were to pair, though if you haven’t already set up the OneControl app you might do that before you’re standing in the campground chatting with new friends about electric bikes.
The app asks for a user name, email and phone number as well as the serial number of your RV.
Still, I didn’t know it was going to want to be this close a friend and I still got it all done in short order.
Lippert did give me these two for review but, honestly, I would absolutely buy these and recommend them wholeheartedly. The only thing I can report on is how long they last nor how long the battery lasts, although they also send a notification to your phone if the battery gets low so at least you won’t be fooled.
Nor will you be frozen in the middle of the night.
