That is interesting. I replaced my original steel tank 21 years ago. I painted the replacement with micaceous irod oxide paimt. It has lasted quite well, but it is prone to rust patches forming, sometimes under the paint, which I have to remove from time to time.
It is difficult to know how serious these rust patches are.
I totally agree, it's easy to create a full base by laying slabs on the lintels. The point I was making was that I believe it's an important step. I do speak with some experience as my sister bought a (new) house in Cornwall and discovered a year or so after moving in that the tank had split for exactly that reason, albeit they are very near the sea on a sandy soil and I suspect the piers had shifted slightly making things even worse for the tank. That was expensive!
In my experience (not with tanks though), paving slabs are useless at supporting weight unless fully/evenly supported underneath themselves.
Indeed. I use them for supporting 3 x 3 posts when building decks. Cheap ones will crack under the weight of two people if not bedded down properly.
Ah. I did cast a 4" concrete base with rebar before building the piers.
The space under is where my wife keeps her spare flower pots. And for some reaoson barbecue charcoal.
The message from snipped-for-privacy@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) contains these words:
You really have to look at the situation.
We're talking about a static load, not a dynamic one.
We're NOT talking about a point loading
We're talking about a situation in which the concrete lintels are relatively close together anyway
Nobody has adduced any evidence of such slabs cracking in this particular application
It seems to me that the recognised practice is just fine, so long as nobody tries to use it as an excuse to get away with just a couple of concrete lintels underneath the tank.
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