Gowesty recommends it on their site where they sell the tank--for whatever that is worth.

Most of the larger companies, Ferrell, Amerigas, will be able to purge a tank.

ss

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of kenneth wilford (Van-Again)
Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2016 3:19 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: purging propane tank

This is not needed.  I have installed many of these tanks and never did
this.   I think they have nitrogen inside to keep the inside from rusting
on the shelf.

Ken

On Sat, Jun 11, 2016, 11:58 PM pickle vanagon <greenvanagon@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I installed a new gowesty propane tank on our vanagon.
>
> I'm having trouble finding someone local to "purge" the tank before 
> filling.
>
> One idea I had was to have the local filler put in a half gallon, and 
> then vent gas out of the bleeder valve for 20 seconds or so, and then 
> fill the rest of the way.
>
> I imagine this would exhaust the vast majority of the air in the 
> cylinder, since the propane will be evaporating and trying to displace 
> as much existing gas as possible.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Thanks!
> -Wes
>