Okay, let’s talk about this helium small tank I got the other day.
My Little Helium Adventure
So, the kid’s birthday was coming up, right? And you know how kids love floating balloons. I thought about renting one of those massive, heavy tanks like you see at party stores, but honestly, the hassle seemed too much for just a handful of balloons. Then I saw these small, disposable helium tanks online. Looked super convenient. “Perfect,” I thought. Clicked order, and a few days later, a surprisingly light box showed up.
Pulled the tank out. It really was small, kinda cute actually. Didn’t weigh much at all. Came with a little plastic nozzle you had to screw on top and some basic instructions printed on the box. Seemed simple enough: open the main valve on top, slip a balloon over the nozzle, bend the nozzle, and fill ‘er up.
Getting Down to Business
Party day arrived. Got the balloons ready. Screwed on that plastic nozzle – felt a bit cheap, gotta say. Then, I slowly turned the green handle on top to open the valve. Heard a little hiss, so far so good. Grabbed the first balloon, stretched the neck over the black nozzle, and pushed the nozzle down like the picture showed. WHOOSH! Helium flowed, balloon inflated. Tied it off, let go, and yep, it floated! Success! The kid was excited.
I started filling more. One after another. It was pretty quick. But after maybe 10 balloons, I noticed it was taking longer to fill them. The pressure was definitely dropping. The box claimed it could fill, like, 30 balloons or something optimistic like that. No way. Not standard sized party balloons anyway. Maybe if you were filling those tiny water balloon sized things?
- Balloon 1-10: Filled fast, floated high.
- Balloon 11-15: Slower fill, still floated okay.
- Balloon 16-ish: Took ages, barely lifted off the ground.
So, reality check: I maybe got 15 decent-floating balloons out of it. The last few were pretty sad and droopy. A bit of a letdown compared to the promise on the box. It did the job for a small bunch, but don’t expect miracles or heaps of balloons.
The Aftermath and Thoughts
Once it was clearly empty (I pushed the nozzle until absolutely nothing came out, just to be sure), I checked the disposal instructions. It’s just a steel tank, but non-refillable. The instructions said to check with local recycling. Had to take it to the metal recycling section at our local waste center. Felt a bit bad tossing a whole steel tank after one use.
So, the final verdict? It’s convenient, for sure. Super easy to use, lightweight, no need to return a heavy rental. But the capacity was underwhelming, felt kinda expensive for the amount of helium I actually got, and the single-use nature isn’t great. If you only need 10-15 balloons max and value convenience over cost/volume, maybe it’s okay. For anything more, I’d probably just bite the bullet and rent a proper tank next time. It worked, but just barely met the minimum need.