The Snyder Industries 16500 Gallon HDPE Vertical Liquid Storage Tank is a Lincoln, Nebraska-built bulk water reservoir engineered for high-volume storage on a 142 x 142-inch footprint, standing 257 inches tall. Built from white polyethylene and certified to ASTM, it carries a 1.5 specific gravity rating, which is exactly the spec that separates a tank sized for water from one that fails early under denser contents. If you are storing fire-water reserve or process water at scale, this is a vertical storage tank built to hold it.
Will it work for your site?
This vertical tank holds 16,500 gallons of water at a full-water weight of 137,610 pounds, and its 1.5 specific gravity rating gives it a maximum rated contents weight of 206,415 pounds. That 1.5 SG rating matters: water has a specific gravity of 1.0, so this HDPE tank carries substantial reserve wall strength above plain water service, which is why it suits long-term reservoir duty rather than being run to the edge of its rating. Plan your foundation around the 142 x 142-inch footprint and the 137,610-pound full-water load, not the empty weight. At 257 inches — over 21 feet — confirm overhead clearance at the site and plan crane or boom offloading, since this exceeds standard truck-mounted forklift reach. One more gate to check before you order ancillary equipment: top access is through a manway with a 15-inch opening, which sets the physical limit on what level sensors, mixers, or cleaning gear will actually fit. Use the Tank Sizing Calculator and the Tank Sizing Guide to confirm this capacity against your draw-down and refill cycle before you commit.
Fittings and venting
The technical drawing on this page details the fitting layout: a flange, a 12-inch by 26-inch fitting, an 18-inch polyethylene threaded and vented fitting, a manway with 15-inch access, and a flat fitting for mounting. On a storage tank this volume, the 18-inch PE threaded and vented fitting handles the air exchange the tank demands during rapid fill and draw — do not cap or restrict it, since a blocked vent invites vacuum collapse on drawdown and overpressure on fill. Confirm your inlet, outlet, and overflow plumbing against the drawing before ordering, since the threaded and vented fitting and the flange locations drive how you tie this tank into your fill and distribution lines.
Sizing, containment, and inspection over the long haul
A reservoir this large rewards a real maintenance plan. Our guide on HDPE tank wall thickness at the vapor-saturated headspace explains why premature failures originate above the liquid line and why liquid-side inspection misses them, alongside the ASTM D1998 sizing logic operators need. If this tank is part of a rural or remote fire-protection stack, the fire-water reservoir tank design guide covers NFPA 22 sizing discipline and cold-climate freeze protection. If your site requires secondary containment, the Snyder Captor double-wall line covers the same service at scale — the Captor freeboard sizing guide walks through how much usable volume you actually get. And for the concrete pad under a tank this heavy, the concrete pad sizing guide lays out the ACI 360R-10 framework you should be working from at 206,415 pounds rated load.
This vertical storage tank ships LTL freight from the Snyder plant in Lincoln, NE, quoted live to your ZIP code. A 16,500-gallon HDPE vessel ships as a single roughly 21-foot-tall load on a flatbed, not a van, and the receiver supplies the crane — so confirm you have crane access and a prepared 142 x 142-inch pad before scheduling delivery. Get an accurate number early with our Freight Cost Estimator or call 866-418-1777 to coordinate delivery and offloading, and we will help you plan the rigging and site access before it leaves Nebraska.
