Camco 57236 Propane Tank Stabilizing Base 20 & 30 lb

A propane cylinder is top-heavy by design. Fill one up, stand it on a truck bed or a storage-bay floor, and it doesn't take much to knock it over. The Camco 57236 fixes that. It's a stabilizing base that attaches to the bottom of a 20 pound or 30 pound propane tank and gives the cylinder a wider footprint, so it stands steady whether it's riding in the back of your RV or parked next to the grill.

Here's the problem it solves. Those standard tanks sit on a narrow foot ring. That's fine when they're strapped into a rack, but the second you set one loose on the ground it wants to rock. And a tank that tips can dent a valve, pinch a hose, or spill over at exactly the wrong moment. This base takes that worry off the table. It holds the cylinder upright and freestanding, no rack required.

It fits both of the sizes most boaters and RVers actually carry. The 20 pound bottle, the same one that runs a lot of grills, and the taller 30 pound tank a lot of trailers use for longer trips. One base covers both, so you're not hunting down a size-specific part or buying two different accessories.

Quick context on those two tank sizes if you're deciding what to keep on hand. A 20 pound cylinder is the familiar grill-size bottle, easy to swap at any exchange cage and light enough to carry one-handed. A 30 pound tank holds more, runs longer between fills, and shows up a lot on travel trailers and larger rigs where you don't want to be chasing propane every couple of days. Whichever one you run, the 57236 cradles it the same way.

Construction is impact-resistant, which matters more than it sounds. Propane gear lives a rough life. It gets dragged across concrete, wedged into a pass-through, bounced down a washboard road to the ramp. A base that shrugs all that off without cracking is the difference between a part you buy once and a part you replace every season.

Where would you use it? On the water and at the campsite, mostly. If you keep a spare bottle in a dock box or a cockpit locker, this keeps it from rolling around when the boat's underway and the chop picks up. In an RV or a trailer, it steadies the tank while you're towing. And at home it's just as useful, sitting next to the grill on the patio or on a garage shelf where a loose cylinder is an accident waiting to happen.

Setup takes about a minute. The base attaches to the foot of the cylinder and the tank stands on it, no tools and no drilling into anything. Once it's on, you've got a stable, freestanding tank you can set down just about anywhere and trust that it'll stay upright. Take it off, move it to your next bottle, put it back on. It's not complicated, and that's the point.

One more thing worth saying about storage. Propane bottles are meant to be kept upright, valve up, and outdoors or in a well-ventilated space. A tank lying on its side or leaning against a wall isn't just a tripping hazard, it's stored wrong. Giving the cylinder a stable, flat base makes doing the right thing the easy thing, which is usually how safety actually sticks.

A couple of honest notes before you add it to the cart. This is the base only. It does not include a propane tank, so you're pairing it with a cylinder you already own. And it's built specifically for 20 and 30 pound tanks. If you're running a bigger 40 pound bottle, you'll want a base rated for that size instead of this one.

For what it costs, it's cheap insurance. A tipped propane cylinder is the kind of thing that turns a good weekend into a bad one, and it's completely avoidable. Camco has been building RV and marine gear like this since 1966, and the 57236 is a simple, honest piece that does one job and does it well. Keep your tank on its feet, and you'll never think about it again.