Liquid Propane Help

I recently bought my first house and it needs work, a lot of work. I'm pretty handy so I'm doing most of it myself. One of the things I wanted to do was convert from an electric stove and dryer to LP to free up some circuit breakers. We had an oil/LP company give us a quote and it was sky high! This particular company insists on using black iron which I know drives the material and labor costs up. Is there a good reason to use black iron vs. copper? Also, could I just install this like a typical RV hook-up and just refill the smaller bottles on my own vs having a large bottle and having the LP company come and refill it for me? I'm good with plumbing, I can sweat pipes and can do black iron if I need to but would I be getting in over my head installing a propane system? I was going to pay the gas company to do the install but they've quoted me almost $1,000 for maybe 30' of pipe to be run in a wide open basement. Just seems excessive... Any insight from you plumbers out there?

 

black pipe is easy to run yourself.just let them do the final hook up.check to see what the codes are in your town.if you can do copper,price out a roll of soft copper(like what they use on central air)and run it yourself and let them do the final hook up.you dont want to deal with smaller bottles.my brother had 2 tanks that where almost 4ft high.not sure how long they lasted but he always ran out.put a gauge in the house so you check you propane levels from inside.

 

The guage is a good idea and good info on the smaller tanks. It's just for cooking and the dryer but it would be annoying to have to run out and get them refilled because the stove stopped working... The wall I'm hitting with doing it myself is the permitting for the tanks. The LP company is telling me they won't connect to my system unless it's inspected by the town and the fire department and someone else (basically a lot of leg work for me and would require me taking more days off to get it done) but I need them to install the tank because they'll pull the necessary permits. Local code allows for copper pipe but I'm looking for people's opinions on it. This company seems pretty set that black iron is the way to go. Cost wise, I disagree because it's a lot more labor intensive and much more expensive. If there are other reasons to use black iron vs. copper, I'd love to know what they are.