[Closed] heating oil tanks - ?bunded or not

go for bunded! I used to work for a company specialising in sorting out domestic properties after fuel oil leaks, the mess, cost and disruption is unbelievable.

what sort of lifespan do the single skin plastic ones have?

Maybe i should just replace the existing one (single skin) with a bunded 2500l thing 😕

you can normally get 15-20 years out a tank if it's been looked after

have a looky here

[url= http://www.tankdepot.co.uk/which_domestic_oil_tank.htm? ]tanky info[/url]

IIRC for non-domestic tanks >2500l (I think) now require to be bunded (and that acts retrospectively too as the council I work for are having to do it).
A heating oil leak is a PITA to clean up afterwards and SEPA will not be best pleased neither.
So if it was me I'd go bunded. Apart from anything else the cost of oil leaked would probably pay for it anyways...
Yeah go for one biggun. 🙂

Bunded before you get someone trying to nick your oil by puncturing your tank

I work for a company who pretty much entirely (95% of the time) deal with the clean up of split oil tanks.

the damage a heating oil loss or bungled theft can cause is phenomenal.
Its not uncommon for people to max out their house insurance claims cleaning it up, and that's with us cutting costs right back to keep our clients (the insurers) as happy as possible.

Bunded, no question.

Always bunded and if you are putting a plastic tank where a metal one was make sure it is supported underneath, saw a load that would bow and crack.

plastic tanks have a 10 year life span. After that you are pushing you luck, especially if the tank gets direct sun.

the repeated heating and cooling of the tank, combined with clumsy delivery drivers leaning on the tank messes with the weld around the horizontal centre line of the tank.

steel tanks rust and drip, which is why people went plastic, but the plastic nearly always fails on a winter delivery. The tank has been weakened enough over the summer, that the 2T weight of a 2000L delivery of winter fuel splits the seam,and the top 1000L ends up around the drivers ankles.

We have gone a bit quiet at the moment, but now the weather has turned nippy, we are expecting the work to pick up quite dramatically again (it does every year)

Olly, don't work for RAW do you?

Direct competitor Tazzy. "Ecologia"

ahhhh was wondering as there were only a couple of companies that did that sort of thing when I was involved in it.

Don't go for a double skinned bunded tank, buy a cheaper single skinned tank and build a seperate blockwork bund below it, often the leakage is from the pipe or pipe fitting rather than the tank skin. If you've ever had to stand next to a tank, shouting for help, with your finger jammed in the outlet to stop gallons of oil pouring across your front garden and into your house because the inline filter has fractured then you'll understand why.

thinking of getting a 2nd tank as my current one is only 1400, and trying to avoid having to refill over winter.

Blimey, has your house got any insulation? We use less than 700 litres a year both for hot water and heating the house.

BTW, why are most heating oil fittings in imperial sizes and not stocked by B&Q or Homebase, the only stores selling plumbing goods that are open on Sundays?

toolstation and screwfix sell plumbing stuff and are open all weekend.

Seperate bunded wall arouund the tank, if the tank fails, then the wall will stop the leak hopefully, and if you dont trust me, throw a bucket of coloured water on the floor and see how far it goes and the mess, now think 2000 litres of smelly oil, at whatever price per litre.

Bunding walls are safer for the environmnet as well.

if you go for a brick bund make sure it's 110% of the full capacity of the tank, properly lined or sealed and has means of pumping any rainwater out.