Welding Tips and Tricks

i have a customer that is wanting to convert large fuel tanks into spent oil storage tanks. One was gas storage and another was diesel storage they are 10000 gallons , I've researched and am looking for the best way to prep the tanks, i am trying to to have to fill them up with water because then technically then that watter must be disposed of and treated like a HAS material.
The largest opening is around a 3'' pipe now . i need to cut 10'' hole in top and weld in 10'' pipe , any thoughts are good

To do it right you need an air monitor that can sense fuel and o2. On the diesel one I would fill it almost up with water and then purge the tank with nitrogen. The gas one is 100 times more dangerous. Same process. Might consider leaving it full of water for a day or two to let the oil and gas float to the top. Then you can skim most of the excess off.

At work to neutralize fuel tanks we have 3 methods we use and haven't had a issue yet.

We either do a long and thorough steam wash after drilling a small drain hole in a way that the tank can be fully drained (if the tank doesn't already have a internally flush drain hole)

Second method takes a long time but can be walked away from. We'll put some water in the tank and alot of dish soap then drop a air line in on a trickle to bubble out the tank. After say a hour we drain and check to see if more bubbling is required.


Third way that I prefer since it's faster and doesn't put water inside a steel tank is acetone. We drill a small hole in a low point then plug the tank up and put enough acetone in to slosh all about when the tank is rolled. Then simply drain and blow dry with compressed air. We know it's safe to put a flame to once all the gas smell is gone.


Given the size of the tank your best bet in my opinion would be he bubble bath method as long as you can fill and drain the tank easily.


Just remember with a fuel tank if in doubt whether it's safe / defumed then neutralize it again or dont carry on with the job.

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Well thank you both for you input , i have quote the job, leaving out the cost of clean out. I called there fuel provider to see if they could swap for new tanks, hope we can go that route.

IF not I will over see the clean operation, but may have an outside company perform the cleaning , just to be 100 percent. Watched a few youtube videos of them cooking off and don't want to be on the news.

Side note Several years ago we had a family friend ( and some one i worked for, not at the time of the accident ) had a welding service, he was subbing for a watter well company. He was on top of a watter tower putting in a vent , when he burned threw it blew the top off the tower throwing him off it , he landed 50 yard way. He was killed instantly. The investigation stated that is was a methane gas pocket in top of the tank created by the watter.

Before that i never would have thought twice about cutting into a watter tank.

thanks for input

Glad my thoughts may have helped.


I'd be wary of bringing another company in to do the clean unless they're also going to do the cut.


Just seen too many places half do things and say yup we did it 100%.


Just my personal opinion though.

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https://gasdetection.3m.com/en/taxonomy/term/102

Nothing beats a good monitor. Takes out the guess work no mater who does the cleaning.

And there cost effective, most probably cost less than a single trip to the ER.

I'll tell y'all a story about a man named Jed. He wanted to salvage some type of tank and reuse it for a fire pit. Ol Jed couldn't wait to ask what was previously in the tank and he just drug it outside the barn and brought the torch too. He touched the torch off, set it to cut metal and started for the tank. Me and cousin Cletus headed for the other side of the barn for fear of a tsunami attackin Jed. Just about 5 seconds into cuttin the tank, there was this NOISE and me and cousin Cletus saw this shadow of Jed headed for the top of the barn. Well, Jed missed the roof of the barn and landed about 20 yards from the other side of the barn. Me and Cletus headed for Jed, who by the way was still smolderin, coughin, spittin and really a shakin. So me and Cletus had to tie Jed to the tractor tire until he quit vibratin and got his breath a bit. Once we cut Jed loose all he could do is ask "What the hell just happened??" and "How did I get here all tied up?"" From that time forward, I haven't given thought to zippin thru any kind of fuel or storage tanks.
Bill

thanks for the link i have rented the monitors in the past for natural gas line repair in confined space , but they were huge and looked expensive at the time , I will just go and buy one at this point if the job comes threw looked as if they have come down in price

Thanks for all the post except the one about JED don't know what the FU*# that was about.

Well, the story about Jed is a true story. The neighbor wanted to cut into a tank and he couldn't wait to determine what was previously in the tank. He hit with a oxy torch and he took off like the wright brothers. Maybe I just wanted folks to think about cutting into storage tanks. Sorry if I got you upset.

Billie. dee sorry didn't mean to come off like that , long day ect.. thought you were making up a story to be cute, didn't know it was a real event , thanks

Definately a story that can be real.


In my area about 2ish years ago a highschool student died from cutting into a 55 gal drum to make a BBQ.


Not sure of the exact details just remember it was all over the news since it was at a highschool.




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Well thanks for everyones input i may just abandon the job now after more thought not worth a few thousand . Back in the day i may have have bothered with it but now with wife and kids. hell with it.

Side note I use to contract for one of the largest box and frat tank lease companys in texas. I would carry roman candles in the truck so if we had a vac box or frac tank in question ( most were chem plant lease) i would stand back and shoot a candle in them , did get a lot of strange look from operations people , but i did save us one time from working on a ''clean not used'' container. IT cooked off and paperwork said it was never used needles to say Do@W payed for that one.

Jed is fiction.

I had a good friend who had a run of bad luck. At age 80, 1000 wonderful ideas came together at the exact time of some prescription medications having a very bad interaction. Plenty of people thought he had lost his mind. He lived in a small town, and had bought the Borden Ice Cream plant after it closed. He ran a machine shop, along with working on so many inventions he couldn't hope to finish. When he was hospitalized, the vultures of the town pounced on him. They threatened his wife with huge fines levied on each day the "mess" wasn't cleaned up.

She asked me to clean it up.

Much of the job was disposing of trash. A derelict mobile home that fell apart in the process of delivery was the centerpiece of the yard. The real treasures we neatened up, calming the predators of government.

The biggest hazard was a 10000 gallon oil tank. He hoped to build an underground steam boiler to power steam engines. It had maybe 15 gallons of #2 fuel oil in it.

I cut a hole in the end big as a door. Oil can quench incredible volume of sparks. The vapor won't support combustion if the liquid is horizontal. The oil was too dirty to use. I reasoned it'd be wrong to risk it getting into the ground water. I'd burn it.
I splashed a bit of liquid up onto the side of the tank, and lit it with a cutting torch.
At first flame was gentle, then it grew. In minutes there was horizontal flame shooting out 20 feet, then rising 30 feet vertically. Noise was deafening! I was terrified it'd set the nearest house on fire, I'd go to prison! Onlookers appeared from everywhere, but none called firemen, or police! My heart rate was off the chart!

Cliff and Marlene are gone now. The place looks like it did the day I left it. Treasured machines rust in neat rows in the corner with Conex boxes shielding them from neighbor's view. No one will ever love them the way Cliff did, or hate them the way Marlene did. I often told him he was born too late. If born earlier we'd all know his name as well as Ford, Edison, Diesel, Watt, Westinghouse, and Tesla.