We have a very old, 1,000-gallon heating oil tank which loads from the top. At present there is no way to tell how much oil we have without using a dip-stick, which is very difficult to do in our situation.
I understand that there are gauges for such tanks, but I don't know where to go to get one, not what to ask for. Any help appreciated.
If you want to go hi-tech, with ultimate convenience try this ultrasonic remote reading one. It'll work on tanks up to 10 feet tall.
A heating and plumbing supplier should be able to get one of those for you. In the olde days they used a mercury manometer as a readout device, but I'm sure that's verboten now, they probably use a diphragm pressure gauge.
Jeff
Thanks Jeff, but that looks a lot more expensive than I was hoping to find. I'm under the impression that there are inexpensive gauges, even if not precisely accurate. All we want is something that will tell us when we get down to around 200 gallons in a 1,000-gallon tank.
-- Ray
OK, so what's the vertical height of the tank?
If it's not too much taller than 44" you could use a Scully "Econ-O-Gage", they are available almost anywhere, and will give you a pretty good relative reading of the oil level via a little white button which moves vertically inside a clear plastic vial.
Jeff (Who happened to have been Chief Engineer at Scully in the 1970s, and it's a hoot to note that they are still producing some of the stuff I designed back then. )
It's a horizontal tank -- about 4 feet deep and 6 feet long.
Where could I get the "econ-o-gauge"?
-snip-
And for low tech- I got one from this guy a few months ago- On ebay.com -- item #7609939951 $27 delivered and no electronics to fail. [check to see if it is the right size for your tank- mine is a 275gal.
Search ebay and froogle for other styles- "fuel tank gauge".
Jim
C'mon Ray.....I can't do EVERYTHING for you y'know.
Open the local Yellow Pages and look for heating and plumbing supply houses. Or, ask whoever you buy your fuel oil from who they buy their whistling tank overfill alarms and gauges from.
Scully has been around since the early 1930s, they are a standard "industry name".
Jeff
There is a Buy It button right on the webpage.
The same page he gave you also has the mechanical one you liked.
Jeff, that's pretty clever how it's made so that it all goes in through the one small hole. Did you do that? Or you're talking about other items you designed.
No wonder they are still selling it. What could be better?
I should probably say that I have one of these, though I don't remember if I could see the maker or if it was Scully.
Others have given you sources to buy one. First try my approach. I asked my oil delivery man where to get one. He provided one at no cost. Slips through the hole in the tank. My tank sounds identical to yours.
Harry K
No, I can't take credit for that one, the basic design was probably there before I was born.
I graduated as an electrical engineer and Mr. Scully hired me to help bring the company into the electronic age.
So, most of the stuff I did involved "Fayle-safe" (TM) electronic overfill protection sensors and flow shut off systems used on things like gasoline delivery trucks and huge storage tanks, though I did help "modernize" some of the existing mechanical products with newer materials and manufacturing techniques as they came along.
All in all, my 13 year sojurn with Scully was probably overall the most enjoyable portion of my career, and included participating in marketing calls to major oil company facilities around the world, back when business air travel was much more of a "luxury" than it's become.
Jeff
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