ABOUT PROPANE

Propane cylinders have a range of identifying marks on the cylinder collar. Understanding them assists users in determining the cylinder's manufacture date and other relevant information.

The manufacture date will show the month and year of manufacture, sometimes separated by an inspector’s symbol. Ten years after the date of manufacture, the cylinder will need to be re-qualified or replaced.

Example: 04 10 or 04Δ10

How to read this manufacture stamp:

04 – Month of manufacture (i.e. April)

05 – Year of manufacture (i.e. 2010)

As propane cylinders need to be re-qualified or replaced every ten years, this mark will show when that re-qualification happened. The easiest way to locate the re-qualification date on a cylinder is to find a sequence of numbers and letters that end in ‘E’.

Example: 05 PD3 13 E H

How to read this re-qualification stamp:

05 – Month of requalification (i.e. May)

PD3 – Re-qualifiers registered mark (this is an identifier that Transport Canada assigns all re-qualifiers)

13 – Year of re-qualification (i.e. 2013)

E – Procedure symbol E (stands for External Visual Inspection). Re-qualification may occur multiple times over the life of the cylinder, so there may be more than one re-qualification date stamped on the collar.

This shows that the cylinder has been designed to Transport Canada specifications and can be used and filled in Canada. Will include the letters TC.

Shows who manufactured the cylinder.

The total water capacity of the cylinder in litres.

The weight of the empty cylinder in kilograms.