Snyder Industries 190 Gallon Plastic Flowmaster Viscous Hopper Bin Tank

A 45 by 48 inch base and the height you need under the discharge

Everything about a hopper bin comes back to what you can fit underneath it. The bin occupies a 45 by 48 inch rectangle of floor and stands 55 inches tall to the top, and the discharge is at the bottom of the sloped section rather than at the side of a flat base. That geometry is bought for one reason: product leaves under its own weight instead of being pumped or shovelled out, which is worth paying for when the material is heavy, sticky, settling or expensive to handle twice. What the sheet does not publish is how far off the floor that discharge sits, and the height under the outlet is the number that decides whether a drum, a pail, a mixer inlet, a conveyor or a weigh hopper fits under it. Measure your receiving container first and tell us the height you need before the order, because this is not a number to discover on delivery day. The base itself wants a flat, continuous, level bearing surface under the full 45 by 48 inch plan, whether that is a slab, a structural deck or a purpose-built frame. No gap under the middle, no packing under one corner, nothing resting on a floor joint. Empty the bin is 330 pounds, which already puts it beyond a two-person lift; the sheet gives 1,585 pounds full of water and 3,011 pounds at the rating, and all of that comes down on a plan smaller than sixteen square feet. On a poured pad rather than a structural slab, the concrete pad sizing guide for above-ground polyethylene tanks is where that load gets sized honestly. Confirm the volume against your real batch size in the tank sizing calculator, and take the headspace a warming or foaming product needs from the tank sizing guide, because a bin filled to the lid is a bin that cannot be stirred.

The viscous bin, the dry bin and the two feed stations listed beside it

The first two rows are the choice that matters and they are not interchangeable. This one is the viscous bin, rated in gallons, for liquid and semi-liquid product that flows slowly. SII-6370424N95402 is the dry hopper bin, rated by the sheet at 25 cubic feet, for dry material discharged through a hopper; its sheet also carries a 190 gallon figure and a specific gravity, and we print those as given without calling it a liquid vessel or claiming any liquid duty for it. The two bins are listed at the same 330 pounds and differ in plan and height: this one is 45 by 48 inches and 55 inches tall, the dry bin is 48 inches square and 57 inches tall. Buy by what is going in, not by which one fits. The last two rows are a different family again, chemical feed station tanks, and the reason to look at them is that they solve a nearby problem in the opposite way. SII-5710103CF42 holds 150 gallons at 138 pounds on a 56 by 43 inch plan and 62 inches tall; SII-5720103CF42 holds 200 gallons at 198 pounds but spreads to 76 by 62 inches. Both are far lighter than this bin and both trade floor for it. Where the product will flow to a pump on its own, a feed station is the cheaper, lighter answer. Where it will not flow, the sloped bottom on this bin is the whole reason to be here.

Not sure which one? Tell us the liquid, the site and the ceiling height at 866-418-1777, or request a written quote with freight to your ZIP.

The 2 inch discharge at the bottom, the 12 inch lid above

• The discharge: the sheet lists a 2 inch outlet at the bottom of the sloped section, and on viscous product that is the number to think hardest about. Two inches moves thin liquid quickly and thick product slowly, so size the valve and the line to the material and keep the run short, straight and falling. Every elbow you add is paid for at the bottom of every batch.
• The valve: put a full-port valve hard against the outlet rather than a restricted one, because a viscous product finds every reduction in a line and stops there. Support the valve, the reducer and anything downstream on their own bracket, never on the bin wall.
• Draining out the last of it: a sloped bottom gets you most of the way and no bin is self-cleaning. Plan for a wash-out and a place for the wash water to go before the first batch, not after a product change.
• Access: a 12 inch lid on top at 55 inches, which is chest height on most people and reachable without a platform. Twelve inches is enough for a hose, a wand, a lance and an arm, which is the practical difference between this and a six inch opening.
• Level and identity: the sheet publishes no level device and no sight gauge, so the level is whatever you fit or whatever you read through the lid. Put the product name on the bin in words before the first fill.
• Service limit: 120 F / 48 C, which is the only service limit this sheet publishes. There is no warranty term on it.

Name the material when you order. Viscosity, temperature and solids content decide the outlet size, the valve type and the gasket, and a bin plumbed for water and fed something thick is a bin somebody stands over with a bar. Where the material is one that has to be contained as well as held, the Captor double wall freeboard sizing guide sets out how thermal expansion, chemistry and density decide the volume you can genuinely use inside any contained vessel.

Thick product, slow draw, and the container underneath

The jobs a viscous hopper bin gets bought for are the ones where a flat-bottomed tank leaves product behind: adhesives, resins, latex and coatings in a manufacturing plant; sludge, polymer and thickened chemical at a treatment works; syrup, oil, fat and slurry in a food plant; drilling and cutting fluids at a shop; settling and dewatering duties where the solids have to come out of the bottom rather than be skimmed off the top. In every one of those the money is in the last ten per cent of the batch, which is the part that stays in a flat tank and comes out of this one. Two hundred and thirty pounds of product left in a tank at every changeover adds up faster than the difference in the purchase price, and that is the argument for a sloped bottom stated plainly.

Three hundred and thirty pounds on forks, Lincoln to your dock

The bin is moulded at Lincoln, Nebraska. The sheet gives the freight class as LTL under NMFC 156600-04, and it shipments at 45 inches long by 48 inches wide by 55 inches high, which is a standard pallet plan at a height that will clear most dock doors without a conversation. Price the lane to your ZIP with the freight cost estimator; the listed price is before freight. At 330 pounds empty this is a forklift or pallet jack delivery at both ends, so have the machine and the operator there when the truck arrives rather than an hour later. Take it from under the base and never by the lid, the outlet or the sloped section. Set it on its finished, level position and get the receiving container under the discharge before you commit to the plumbing. Then fill it with clean water, hold it, read the outlet, the valve joint and the lid seal, and drain it through the discharge so you learn how it empties with something that cannot stain. A bin you have never watched drain is a bin you will be guessing about on the first real batch. Chalk the full-water line on the outside after the first fill; it is the level every later reading gets checked against.