Home Depot Propane Robot

  Posted on August 4, 2009

I had my first experience with Home Depots automatic propane exchange center today.  It felt like a cross between a game show where I had to guess which storage chamber would open, and a jail break where I freed the tank from its cell.  If you haven’t tried it, it is a bizarre use of technology.  Not sure how much it saves Home Depot (they had an attendant standing there to help), or how much it improves the customer experience.  I eventually had to manually type in the 23 digit barcode number since the barcode reader wasn’t working.

As an update to Less Propane, Same cost, these 15 pound tanks from AmeriGas came with a Mail-in Rebate for $2.50.  My exchanges tanks had been 17 pounds.  Thats from $1.03/pound to $1.17/pound, or a 13.6% increase.  Not that I blame them with the prices of gas going up, but I would have prefered an increase in price so I can make less trips to the store.