Don't know if this was discussed here before I was around. Worth mentioning. There were a bunch of defective flex NG hoses on the market. Those hoses are most common on ranges and clothes dryers. I replaced the ones in this house with new hoses because I didn't know how old the hoses were. Can't find anything about it now. About 10 years ago. I'll bet there's plenty of those bad hoses out there waiting to fail.
--Vic
I'm not disputing that. But I have never heard of a bomb that used a grain silo or wood shop as one if its parts.
You might try an RV dealer. There's also this post that suggests that manufacturers don't want to sell 100 gallon or larger tanks to consumers.
The problem is that although you can buy a tank, there's not a lot of incentive for the dealers to sell you one unless they price it quite high. Not so coincidentally, the payback when compared against renting the tank was about 15 years on a 500 gallon tank ($72/year rent vs. $1000 to buy).
Dry AFEs are in relatively common use as IEDs in the eastern wars.
Tractor supply sells them.
I have seen 100# (pounds not gallon) LPG tanks for sale. I have one but no longer use it. When I used it, I simply put it in the back of my car and drove it down to a "re-fill" place. The "re-fill" place was run out of the office of a trailer park and was set up as much as a convenience for the trailer owners as outsiders.
Many folks take the 20# tanks to "re-fill" places rather than the tank exchange places. It's usually about $5 cheaper to re-fill over exchange. When you tank gets to be "re-proofed" you simply take it to an exchange place and hope you get one with more time left. Many exchange places don't give the customer the choice of tank.
There is a "heavy duty" LPG tank intended for use of LPG powered fork lifts and other wheeled equipment that have a battery powered counterpart. In many/most places these LPG fork lift trucks with the heavy duty tanks can be used in large but enclosed spaces like warehouses. The extra heavy construction makes the tank safe from being punctured in a "reasonable" industrial accident.
Actually, MOST fork lift tanks are aluminum instead of steel - making them easier to manhandle - but no stronger than a "camper" tank.
Most are also "liquid takeoff" rather than "vapout take-off" tanks.
Steve said sabotage was suspected, not assumed. That's a big difference and I'm surprised you missed it. The investigator would be the idiot if they did not investigate fully - even the improbable causes.
Rreply: The investigation never found a definite cause. In death, there are natural, homicide, accidental, etc. I don't know what the categories are in an explosion of this type. I just know what my FIL told me, and that was that no cause was ever PROVEN beyond a reasonable doubt. The insurance company paid off, and they just moved to another house.
Some of you put very high assigned values on things that go bump in the night. What's up with that?
Steve
"willshak" wrote
I have welded since 1974. I cannot watch that video enough. Some of the things that stick in my mind are the very large very heavy metal tanks going hundreds of yards, landing right in the middle of the freeway. And what amazes me more is the people who slow down and stop to watch this, seemingly oblivious of an incoming steel tank of 150# at 500 F. Human stupidity and natural raw power never cease to amaze or amuse me. Too bad one of the lookie loos didn't sustain a direct hit. Just one, PUHLEEEEZE.
Steve
"willshak" wrote
This one is short and fun.............
Yeah, the vapor.
Along about 1966 I was living on my boat in Ala Wai Harbor in Honolulu. Just across the channel was Ala Wai Marine...a marine store, drydock, fix anything place. It was the fourth of July and the marina was closed but one of the employees was busy doing something directly across from me. Maybe
60-70 yards away. All of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion (and fire ball) and the guy was dead.The owner of the marina was a friend of mine and I later talked to him about the accident. Turned out the guy had been grinding on an old barrel that had once contained diesel fuel. The barrel had been long empty and had been filled with water and emptied numerous times - may have been filled with water at the time, don't recall - but there were still enough vapors left to explode from the sparks when he cut through with the grinder.
I recently brazed a gasoline tank with no problems. My solution was to let it dry for a few weeks under the sun, and fill it with water almost all the way, up to 1/2" away from the top. Nothing happened.
i
A veces tienes suerte (sometimes you get lucky). Maybe because gasoline is more volatile than diesel?
What kind of tank? I tried soldering the leaking gas tank seam of a 1976 Chevy Caprice in
1981. Maybe a 20 gallon tank. Emptied it, put it on the ground and did 3 full fill-agitate-rinse cycles with detergent laced water, then filled again as much as I could to solder the seam. Probably 80% full. I could barely detect a very slight gas smell.As soon as I put the torch on the seam it exploded flame a yard out the big sender unit hole. It was quite a bang and knocked me on my ass. Lucky I didn't blow my head off. Went to the boneyard and a got a perfectly good tank for 20 bucks. Until I stapled my finger 25 years later, trying to solder that tank was my record for stupidity. Not knocking your success, but you'll never find me putting heat on a fuel tank again.
--Vic
I would list these reasons:
1) It is more volatile and had enough time and heat to escape most fumes. 2) 1/2 inch space above water, does not create enough room for a big conflagration 3) Your neighbor probably embelished things a bit about how much he purged the barrel 4) Solid oily gunk may have been left in the barrel, and it evaporated due to heat and then exploded. i
I gave mine two weeks to dry under hot sun. Plus, the volume after filling with water, was minuscule. The first thing I did was stick a torch inside, to check.
i i
I'm glad you are careful.
We used to weld them all the time. Hook a rubber garage exhaust hose up to an idling vehicle and stick it over the fill tube. Leave the sending unit out. Let the vehicle idle for about half an hour. Water isn't what you want, what you want is to move some air through it. Gas evaporates easy.
And as was stated on this list at the time - you beat the odds. The odds were not heavily against you, but the POSSIBILITY that the tank could explode, even when :filled" with water was still there. If you were brazing a spot that was below the water line your odds were a whole lot better for having no problem explosion-wize - but the difficulty of brazing the tank went WAY up.
snipped-for-privacy@snyder.on.ca wrote the following:
You would have a problem Brazing below the water line though. The metal could not get hot enough to braze. That's like trying to solder a pipe joint while water is in the pipe.
Here's what some say about preparations for welding on a gas tank.
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