I have often considered installing a diesel storage tank at home considering the possibilty of less, (or no fuel) available, the more the middle east countries keep beating each other up, which of course will never end. Two points come to mind. 1. What is the quality of diesel likely to be in this situation and would there be a preferred source? 2. Does diesel go off?
Very best regards..........................MD.
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Hi Martin
loads of potential problems here I'm afraid.
A diesea tank isn't really expensive, but must be large enough for your requirements and it MUST be bunded. I would imaging for domestic use you may need planning permission and your insurers will be keen to know about it..
Quality wise, I run my vans at work on it and I've never had any problems. Pricewise on a 2600lt l fillup, expect to save 1-2 p per litre, if your lucky . & have your money handy because your unlikely to get any credit offered to you - so that'll be £2500 -£2600 sir. Getting a smaller tank really wouldn't help your aim of having fuel when the pumps run out. As for a preferred source, hit yellow pages, select fuel suppliers and go for the cheapest.
As for diesl going off - it's never been a problem for me, but then again, I don't keep it for to long. But you'd need to keep it protected from the really cold weather in Winter.
MTC
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Well, you could get a heating oil tank, one type of heating oil is diesel fuel oil anyway (the other is kerosene).
Are you sure these have to be bunded? People usually have their tanks on a concrete bed, or slabbed area.
You could drain the diesel via the drain cock, or fashion some pump and hose.
It shouldn't go off for a while, but you can get additives to help stop bacteria blooms, they have a water trap, and you could install a diesel fuel filter. Maybe biodiesel would be better?
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Well, you could get a heating oil tank, one type of heating oil is diesel fuel oil anyway (the other is kerosene). Are you sure these have to be bunded?
I think domestic heating oil tanks now have to be bunded, but the plastic tanks are double skinned to deal with this. Would you need to store 3,000 litres of diesel? How many miles do you do?
Maybe biodiesel would be better?
I've been told that biodiesel doesn't have to be kept in a bunded tank because it's biodegradable.
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Thats something that you would need to really carefully research.
The EA is absolutely redhot on fuel spillages getting into the water course - any fuel spillage.
if I've read the original link correctly, Joe Business needs to take all sorts of precautions if he's storing over 200 lt's, But Jim private bloke doesn't unless he's got more than 3500 lt's or over 17 times as much - seems daft to me.
MTC
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>But Jim private bloke doesn't unless he's got more than 3500 lt's or over 17 times as much - seems daft to me.
As I read the regs the only dispensation over 200l for private users is for domestic heating oil, not for motor fuel. Even for domestic fuel it's reqd. by OFTEC regs to have a bunded tank within 100m of a water course.
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Even for domestic fuel it's reqd. by OFTEC regs to have a bunded tank within 100m of a water course.
Thanks local yokel
I'm glad that you've put me straight on that - it did seem odd to me on first reading.
MTC
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See www.netregs.gov.uk/netregs/275207/275441/?lang=_e - if you have a tank capable of storing more than 200 litres you will come under the regs.
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3500 litres at a private dwelling it says on that link, most houses have 3000 litre heating oil tanks.
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I know about the installation and bunding requirements and have installed many over the years. Just couldn't cope with queues at the pumps or non-availability
vbr........................md
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Hi Martin
If you know about the regs etc, then I would say that its sourcing the cheapeast fuel and researching the ways to make it last (sorry I can't help you here) and also hiding / disguising / securing your tank very well.
If fuel does become scarce, your tank will become target no1 for the local bad boys.
MTC
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If fuel does become scarce, your tank will become target no1 for the local bad boys.
Echoes of "MAD MAX"
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& every time those awfully nice "travellers" come to your area, you'll spend your time worrying a lot (that got got around the swear checker OK).
MTC
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If I remember correctly from the days when we had an oil central heating tank (600 gallons or about 2727 litres), the tank was metal and not bunded at all. There was no problem with the fuel 'going off' in any weather, either hot or cold and no problems with water contamination.
The central heating fuel was described as 35sec and was as far as I know exactly the same as diesel but without the fuel tax. In those days (1970's) it was quite common for naughtly people to run their vehicles on this central heating oil. I know of no one who was caught doing it and wonder in today's climate of £1 per litre for road fuel, just how many are tempted to try it.
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Bunding?takes me back some 30 years when I was at an Establishment which had two huge tanks each containing about 40,000 galls of 35 sec oil for the steam boilerhouse.
They were surrounded by a blue brick bund wall to the statutory required height which would take I believe just over half the capacity of the tanks.
Inside one corner was a sump with an automatic float pump to remove rainwater as it was of course a sealed wall.
Only one tank at a time would be on line into the boiler house where it was pumped on a ducted ring main past the boilers and surplus oil was pumped back to the same tank. It required both valves to be open on one tank and both closed on the other for obvious reasons.
One of the Plant attendants inadvertently left the offline return valve on the offline tank open when he changed over tanks in the night after a delivery.
This resulted in return oil filling it and spilling over the vent onto the concrete base and into the sump.
The pump obediently started up and pumped it out into the drains and down to our own sewage plant.
The Sewage Works attendant came on duty next morning and found hundreds of gallons of oil had entered the works and some had gone through the spray arms and killed all the bacteria. It had also of course entered the outflow and polluted the stream which led to a river. Cost a lot of money and embarrassment . Severn Trent werent very pleased with us....
An obvious design fault which led to this disaster and amazing that none of us had spotted the obvious danger of this happening. We closed the stable door immediately by replacing the float switch with a manual one.
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Winer diesel is different from summer. That might give you problems...
madf
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Winter diesel is different from summer. That might give you problems... madf
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Thank you, I had forgotten that one.
vbr...................md
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bunding regs changed recently and you are supposed to pump fuel out of the top of the tank but if the area where you keep the tank is your bund thats ok (your garage with a lip on the door for example) diesel will keep ok for long enoughand you can use winter diesel in the summer with no problems and if you want to use summer diesel in the winter you can add something like dci+ to combat waxing
by the time you set this up it will be hard to save money and if you only want a bit of fuel for a rainy day you would be better to fill a few 200 litre or 45 gallon barrels as you stand a good chance of getting empty oil barrels free
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i can imagine you looking at the derivatives market every morning and seeing if your "stock "has gone up in price.
As already said if you do instal this derv fuel tank and pay your taxes word will soon get round that you have it and you will spend your nights riding shotgun on your bunded tank,it needs well nailing to the floor if you dont want it hiabing away.
good luck rather you than me.............
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good luck rather you than me.............
That bad eh!
vbr..........MD
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