Heating oil tank (green plastic, 2000 litres) sprang a leak yesterday

MM · 2015-09-24T07:09:35+00:00

Had an emergency yesterday afternoon. I happened to be hanging the washing outside when I noticed that the heating oil tank had split for about an inch about half-way up the side. The oil wasn't gushing out, but something Had To Be Done urgently. This was at 5:30 pm so the heating oil supplier had gone home. The next door neighbour and I managed to seal the leak temporarily with wet potter's clay and tape so that it just dripped, but I thought I can't leave it like that until the morning, so I called the fire station in Boston for advice (non-999 number). There is no fire station in the small town where I live in South Lincs, so I called the Boston station and caught the resident fire officer just as he was about to leave. He said straightway he'd send a fire engine, as they had better sealing putty than the potter's clay. They use it on lorry tanks. Anyway, they arrived 20 minutes later - five blokes! Very helpful. Within just ten minutes the guy who seemed to have done it before had sealed it with the stuff they use, which is called Dammit (I've since looked it up on the internet). They covered the Dammit with several layers of what looked like black duct tape. In the interim I called my heating engineer, who is coming first thing this morning with temporary bund tanks to pump out my tank into. I'll have to get a new tank, but I don't know whether to get a single-skin or a bund tank. The fire officer thought bund tanks were mandatory now, but I still see firms on the internet selling single-skin ones, which my current one is. Thing is, I took delivery of heating oil yesterday mid-morning and it filled the tank brimfull, so probably the extra pressure of 2000 litres pressing on the tank was enough for it to give way. The tank was manufactured in 2004. I'm just hoping the repair will last until tomorrow morning, but if it bursts open again, the fire officer said just ring 999 as my details will now be on the system already. Update: I didn't sleep much, so went out...

Sep 24, 2015 81 Replies

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MM 10 years ago

Thanks for the link. I cannot believe how incredibly cheap these IBC containers are. How reliable ar they? I'm a bit concerned that I've got a 1000 litres of heating oil sitting in an IBC on the back lawn till the engineer installs the new tank.

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Adrian 10 years ago

They're used commercially for delivering and storing new hydraulic oil and various chemicals.

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