Good info!exnailpounder wrote:Around here AirgASS will not exchange a competitor bottle no matter what. My NEW happy nice LWS will take anyone's bottle but you have to pay for a hydro even if it's still in hydro. There isn't really any advantage to owning a bottle other than you can always sell it and usually get all your money back as opposed to when your lease is up you have to re-lease and pay all over again but the lease is 7 years. My LWS did tell me that 300cf cylinders are not for sale and if you buy one, it is considered stolen property. Anything smaller can be owned. Whether that's true or not I am not sure but I was going to buy 4 300cfs full of helium from a farmer and I called my LWS to ask them if they would exchange them and they told me not to buy them. My owned bottles are documented through the LWS as they took my bottles as an exchange but have their stamp in the neck but I can keep them forever. The whole ground off neck stamp scam doesn't go over around here. There are very few plain necks out there and the welding stores know it.
I decided to own the cylinders for a few reasons. Mainly it is a value system of owning everything that I plan to keep around for more than a week. My local also requires monthly lease payments(no yearly available) adding to my paperwork. Once I'm confident in my skills, the gas consumption should go waaay down. Nothing wrong with leasing for most. Expect them to do a credit check.
I started giving a little more thought to purchasing from individuals after your post. There is such a variety of rules from one shop to another like you mentioned. The only way to know you have a sure thing is to physically carry it to the LWS and get their blessing on it. A phone call first could save you some trouble too. I also checked my checked my cylinder over very well for damage. Layed it over and looked underneath too.