[Philmont]: RE: Shipping stoves - rules change?

Here's what I found out from calling the Philmont post office. This is
different and more stringent that what I've seen previously posted here.

To prepare white gas stoves with self-contained fuel (Coleman Peak 1 for
example) and fuel bottles for shipping, the DOT guidelines call for

1) emptying the container of all fuel
2) washing out the fuel container with hot soapy water
3) rinsing out the fuel container with hot water
4) air drying the container for a minimum of 12 hours

UPS, USPS, and FedEx ground should accept these for shipping, although the
Philmont post office guy said that a couple of UPS store had refused them
recently. The magic words are supposed to be "I prepared the stove and
bottles for shipping according to the DOT guidelines."

To return your stoves home, you take them to the Philmont post office. For
$7.50 per stove and up to 3 fuel bottles, they will perform the above
cleaning procedure, then pack and ship your stoves for you (since the 12
hour drying time means you probably won't be able to pack them yourself).

Be advised that this rules change appears to be new and not well understood
at the shipping desk at UPS. The person investigating this for us was
getting grief from the clerk about the carbon deposits on the surface of a
used stove. It did no good to point out that these were the results of use
and not a source of fuel for explosions. It's not that the clerk wasn't
sympathetic, but that they had no instructions about how to interpret the
rules and so it was easier to refuse to ship the stoves.

Rick Cordray
Crew 2016
Woodinville, WA

------------Original message-----------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 10:35:36 -0700
From: "Rick Cordray" <rickc@image-tech.com>
Subject: Shipping stoves - rules change?

There was apparently a rules change on shipping stoves on 7/14. One of our
crew advisers is getting a complete run-around from UPS, DOT, state patrol,
etc. because no one can tell him how to package stoves for shipping under
the new rules. No one can tell him how to "purge a fuel bottle". Emptying
it and airing it out for a day apparently is not sufficient anymore.

Does anyone have more information? If we find out more, I'll post it to the
list.

Thanks,

Rick Cordray
Crew 2016
Woodinville, WA

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Received on Tue Jul 20 23:20:48 2004