A man who didnt like driving a propane truck in Spokane snow has found a new career and a way to stay out of the cold by inventing an aesthetically pleasing cover for the large white propane tanks found outside homes and businesses.


It was a casual comment from inventor Dave Rappaports father, a retired high school science teacher from Los Angeles, that triggered the young mans research on how to camouflage the estimated 14 million 120-gallon to 1,000-gallon propane tanks that serve customers in the U.S.


I know 100 percent of the people out there hate the looks of their tanks, says Rappaport, who is president and a 50 percent owner of the venture, Tank Tops Inc. The other owner, CEO Jack Robinson, also owns Robinson Windword Inc., a longtime Spokane contract sewing business.


Robinson, who says he got his start in the sewing industry in the 1970s when he designed a nylon wallet, expects fledgling Tank Tops, which has four employees and shares space in Windwords 10,000-square-foot building on Geiger Boulevard atop Sunset Hill, to explode.


He projects that Tank Tops will exceed $10 million in sales and employ 15 to 20 workers within the next five years.


Only in the propane business since 2001 following stints as a United Parcel Service driver in Los Angeles and a power lineman both there and in Sandpoint, the 39-year-old Rappaport took it to heart when his father, Robert Rappaport, said in conversation, Its too bad they dont make some kind of cover for all those propane tanks.


After Dave Rappaport researched his idea for a year and a half, national propane giants AmeriGas Partners, of Valley Forge, Pa.; Cenex Propane Partners, of Inver Grove Heights, Minn.; and Heritage Propane Partners, of Tulsa, Okla., all approved the covers as safe. That has opened the door for Tank Tops to negotiate sales directly with their many propane distributors, says Rappaport.


Their acceptance level was amazing from a safety standpoint, says Robinson.


Rappaport asserts those in the industry have remarked that the camouflage covers have been a long time coming.


These covers are the next best thing to an underground tank, says Ed Hansen, district manager for Northern Energy-Spokane, a propane distributorship. And business is pretty brisk on selling them.


The tan, brown, gray, and green covers come in standard 120-gallon, 250-gallon, 500-gallon, and 1,000-gallon sizes and, equipped with a drawstring to give a secure fit, can cover any size tank, says Rappaport. Covers can be attached to tanks in less than five minutes, he says.


Reflecting the heat


Because propane is volatile, large tanks have always been white or silver to reflect the suns heat. Most previous covers for them have used materials that absorb heat, thus creating a hazard, says Rappaport. He says if propane in a tank warms significantly, a release valve on the top of the tank automatically releases the pressure in the tank, but if the valve is faulty, a tank can explode.


It has always been a no-no to put color on a tank, says Rappaport.


He says, however, that a Tank Tops cover is designed to give a more pleasing look to tanks while mimicking exactly what a white tank would be doing.


The patent for the tank covers is still pending, so Rappaport and Robinson arent candid about describing the product.


After experimenting with a myriad of possible covers made from such diverse components as chicken wire and tin foil, Rappaport became enamored with the sun visor material used in automobiles. He studied their ability to reflect the suns rays. He eventually expanded his research to include Northern Energy, where Hanson was a tremendous help in determining how tested materials affected the temperatures of propane in a tank.


It wasnt until Rappaport made his first contact with Robinson by telephone one and a half years ago that the business fell into place.


When Jack heard my idea, he was my buddy, says Rappaport. Robinson agrees that that the connection was instant. Right away I could see the potential for his product, he says.


Robinson, 48, helped the entrepreneur locate the right material, a non-woven synthetic nylon called polypropylene, that could blanket and give color to the rest of the covers components. Those are two sheets of light, shiny, aluminum that sandwich two layers of bubble wrap, which Rappaports studies found could simulate the white surface of a propane tank. The aluminum sheets, commonly used in home construction, reflect 97 percent of all radiant heat, says Rappaport, but would be too shiny without the polypropylene cover.


He says the polypropylene-aluminum sheet combination is so effective as a cover that it can keep the propane inside a tank from heating up no matter what color of cover is used, including black. Its all about reflection, he says.


Because more than 90 percent of all propane tanks are owned by propane dealerships and are leased to customers, Tank Tops has chosen to market its product through dealers, which would sell covers to their customers, Rappaport says. He suggests the possibility that propane distributors, which sometimes offer extra fuel as an incentive to sign on new customers, might use tank covers as an incentive.


He expresses confidence that the covers will find a market.


You dont have to be a rocket scientist to know how ugly those propane tanks look, he says. We have no competition now, and I dont expect any.


Suggested retail prices for the covers range from $85 for the 120-gallon tank covers to $130 for covers for 1,000-gallon tanks.


Most people spend more money building a fence or planting shrubbery around their tank, says Kay Howard, director of sales for Tank Tops.


Tank Tops has sold about 200 units since the cover went on the market March 11. Robinson estimates the company has another 1,500 covers sewn and ready for sale.


Rappaport, who, along with Robinson, each invested about $50,000 in the business, says Tank Tops had $20,000 in revenue its first month.


Currently, 50 percent of the companys covers are cut and sewn at the Geiger operation, and 50 percent are subcontracted to businesses that do sewing work for Windword in Seattle, says Robinson.


Robinson Windword makes specialized cases, pouches, straps, and harnesses for high technology and medical customers. It also makes carrying bags for the U.S. Postal Service.


Of the 200 propane tank covers Tank Tops sold in its first month, about 70 percent were dark green, says Rappaport.


He says he still returns occasionally to the South Hill to gaze upon the first Tank Tops cover to be applied to a propane tank. When the first one was actually sold, I felt legitimate. There was suddenly a weight off of my shoulders, Rappaport says.


Robinson says Tank Tops uses only about 1,500 square feet of space in the Windword building, but anticipates renting shipping containers soon to store additional inventory on the one and a half acres of property he owns there.


There is a great potential for this product and for similar products, says Robinson. We have some new twists we cant talk about yet, as we are still working them out.