Norwesco 500 Gallon Black Heavy Duty Vertical Storage Tank (42116)
42116 holds 500 gallons in a polyethylene shell 48 inches long by 48 inches wide by 73 inches tall, a four foot circle standing six feet one inch. The colour cell reads Black. Empty weight is 119 lb and the shipping line reads 119 lb. The outlet is a 2 inch PP female NPT bulkhead fitting, the inlet cell carries no entry, and the top is a 16 inch threaded vented manway. The specific gravity cell reads 1.9, against 4170 lb of water at 8.34 pounds per gallon and a maximum contents figure of 7923 lb. The ceiling is 120 F / 48 C, the warranty cell reads five year, the freight class is 300 and the mode is LTL. Four plants carry it: Hanford, Fairfield, Tooele and Washougal.
Spec sheet in hand? Call 866-418-1777 and read us the liquid and the pad; or get freight to your ZIP and add it to your cart above.
Four ways the sheet spells five hundred gallons
| Record | Capacity cell | Shell | Empty cell |
|---|---|---|---|
| 42116 (this record) | 500 gal | 48 x 48 x 73 in | 119 lb |
| 40582 | 500 gal | 48 x 48 x 73 in | 104 lb |
| 45877 | 500 gal | 48 x 48 x 68 in | 120 lb |
| N-40148 | 500 gal | height 73 in | |
| N-41490 | 525 gal | height 78 in | |
| 44034 | 310 gal | 32 x 32 x 94 in | 82 lb |
The first two rows are the pair that matters. 42116 and 40582 print the same capacity cell and the same 48 by 48 by 73 inch shell. What the sheet prints differently between them is the empty weight cell, 119 lb here and 104 lb there, and the specific gravity cell, and the warranty cell. Those three cells are the whole of the published difference and we are not going to build a story on top of them: we will not tell you what the words Heavy Duty mean in the mould, because our sheet does not say, and we will not do arithmetic between the two weight figures and hand you the answer as a fact. Both numbers are above. Read them.
45877 is the third 500 gallon record and it is a different shell again, 68 inches tall on the same four foot circle, at 120 lb. N-40148 publishes a height of 73 inches and leaves its length, width and weight cells empty, and we have printed them empty. The last two rows are simply the nearest capacities the sheet carries either side.
Two rows look the same? The difference is the wall; call 866-418-1777 with the liquid and we will say which, or ask for a quote on both.
The buyer who reads the warranty cell first
What goes in it is the question this record answers differently from its neighbour. The specific gravity cell on 42116 reads 1.9 and the maximum contents figure is 7923 lb, against 4170 lb if the tank is holding water at 8.34 pounds per gallon. That is a sheet written for a buyer whose liquid is a good deal denser than water and who knows it: a plating shop, a treatment skid, a blending operation, anybody whose supplier quotes a density on the drum label. If your liquid is water or close to it, a great deal of what this record publishes is headroom you are paying for and will never reach.
The second cell such a buyer reads is the warranty cell, which on this record says five year. That is a printed commercial term, not a performance claim, and it is one of the three cells that separates 42116 from the record beside it. We are stating it because it is on the sheet and because buyers of dense liquids weigh it; we are not going to extend it into a statement about how long the tank lasts, because the sheet does not say that either.
The limitation to be straight about is the inlet. There is no inlet cell entry on 42116. Everything above the liquid line, the fill route, the vent path beyond the manway, any level device, is unspecified here and is your design. On a shell six feet tall that is a real piece of work, because whatever you decide, somebody has to reach the top of it. Our note on what a bearing surface has to do under a polyethylene tank, and where the slab-on-grade reference stops applying covers the other end of the same install.
Reading 42116's port and limit cells straight
The draw-off route is the first thing to lay out, because on a tall narrow shell it is also the thing that decides where the tank goes. The outlet is a 2 inch PP female NPT bulkhead fitting near the bottom of a shell that stands 73 inches, which means you have six feet of column above that port when the tank is full and a real head at the pump. Set the pump low and close, keep the suction line full bore for its whole length, and give yourself a union at the tank so the pump can come off without the tank coming down. A dense liquid at 1.9 is harder work for a pump than water is; oversizing the suction side is cheap and undersizing it is permanent.
| Field | What 42116 prints |
|---|---|
| Outlet | 2 inch PP female NPT bulkhead fitting |
| Inlet | no entry |
| Top opening | 16 inch threaded vented manway |
| Ceiling | 120 F / 48 C |
| Specific gravity | 1.9 |
| Maximum contents | 7923 lb |
| Water at 8.34 lb per gallon | 4170 lb |
The vented manway is the part people under-respect on a tall tank with a 2 inch draw. A pump pulling hard on a sealed vessel will deform a polyethylene shell inward long before anything dramatic happens, and the vent in that 16 inch threaded manway is the only published thing standing between you and that. Keep it open and keep it clean.
The install specific here is about the thread rather than the pipe. A 16 inch threaded manway six feet off the ground is a manway somebody will close while standing on something, at an angle, in a hurry. Start it by hand with the palm flat, back it off until it drops into the lead, and never bring a bar to it. A cross-threaded manway on a tall tank is a repair you make on a ladder.
A four foot circle standing six feet
Four feet of base is a small footprint for 500 gallons, and that is the argument for this shape. It fits in a bay corner, against a wall, inside a bunded area that is already poured, on a skid beside equipment that is already there. Where floor area is what you are short of, the tall shell is simply more tank per square foot of concrete, and the price of that is that everything on top of it is out of reach from the ground.
The other thing a tall shell buys you is elevation head at the outlet, which is worth something on any arrangement that feeds by gravity. How much is a question about your pipe run rather than about this tank, and it changes as the level drops. If the downstream equipment cares about a steady feed rather than any feed, that is a pump conversation, not a height conversation.
Size the volume with the tank sizing calculator and check your reasoning against the tank sizing guide before you settle. If this tank is a buffer inside something larger, read our treatment of quality-banded storage trains and the sequencing of aggregation stages; if it is a reserve that has to be full when everything else has failed, read our piece on reservoir sizing for rural and remote sites and freeze protection in cold-climate service.
Out of four plants on a class 300 bill
Hanford in California, Fairfield in Texas, Tooele in Utah and Washougal in Washington are the four plants on this part number, and the ships-from cell names exactly those four states and no others. That is a western and southern footprint, which is worth knowing early if your site is in the northeast, because on a 48 by 48 by 73 inch shell weighing 119 lb the lane length is most of what you pay. The class prints 300 and the mode is LTL. Get your destination ZIP into the freight cost estimator before the order goes in, because the listed price is before freight.
Receive it with a tape measure. A tall narrow shell rides upright and gets strapped across the belly, and a shell that has been cinched too hard does not always show a mark; it shows a height. So before the last strap comes off, run a tape from the deck to the top rim at four points round the tank, a quarter turn apart. Four readings that agree with each other and with the 73 inch figure means the shell came through square. One short reading means the strap found a soft spot, and you want that photographed on the trailer.
Keep those four readings on your phone; they are the only baseline you will ever have for this shell. Mark the vent and the outlet on the outside of the shell so nobody caps the wrong one in the dark.
Freight and documents
Ships from: Hanford, CA; Fairfield, TX; Tooele, UT; Washougal, WA. LTL freight is quoted to your ZIP with the freight cost estimator or by phone at 866-418-1777. The listed price is before freight.
Technical drawing (PDF) for Norwesco 42116.
See this tank
Interactive 3D model with live fill. This tank has an interactive 3D model built to its manufacturer dimensions. Rotate it, and set a fill level to see how much liquid it holds at any height. Open the 3D view on the product photo above. Download the 3D model (GLB).
Product video. Watch the Norwesco 500 Gallon Black Heavy Duty Vertical Storage Tank video (69 seconds) with dimensions, fittings and shipping notes.
Ready to order?
Add it to your cart at the top of this page, get LTL freight to your ZIP, request a written quote, or call 866-418-1777. The listed price is before freight.
