Snyder Industries 290 Gallon ASTM XLPE Black Heavy Duty Vertical Storage Tank

Six feet of shell, and the ceiling that has to clear it

The tape measure settles this tank before the spec sheet does. Seventy-two inches is six feet to the rim, and a fill line, a vent and a level probe all want room above that, so the joist, the sprinkler head and the light fixture get measured first; a 96 inch ceiling is comfortable and anything much under it is not. The reward for the height is the footprint. A 36 inch circle is the same floor the smaller tanks in this family stand on, so you get the largest pour in the group without giving up an inch of aisle, which is the reason this shell ends up in crowded chemical rooms. Under it, the ground is the real structure. Plain water puts 2,419 pounds inside the shell and the 1.9 rating allows 4,595 pounds, all of it bearing on that 36 inch circle, because a rotationally molded floor carries on its whole floor and on nothing else. Pour the slab to the concrete pad sizing guide, level and in full contact, inside a berm sized to the tank where the liquid is regulated, and keep the pad big enough to walk around. Then strap it. Six feet of empty tank weighing 80 pounds on a three foot base is a light, tall thing, and wind through an open bay door moves it; bands to structure or anchors set in the slab go on the day it lands, get checked after the first storm, and get checked again at the end of the first summer, because a black wall in the sun grows a little every day and a strap that was tight in spring is slack in August. Black passes no light into the liquid and takes the ultraviolet that ages a pale shell, and it hides the level in exchange, so a sender and a local readout are part of the install. Run 290 gallons against the draw between deliveries in the tank sizing calculator, and take the reserve and the warm-weather freeboard from the tank sizing guide.

Four walls in the 1013000 shell, plus the wide 275 and the tall 300

Four walls are molded in this exact shell at this exact weight, and the only reason to buy this one is the pair of fields at the end of its sheet: a cross-linked wall and a service limit of 140 F / 60 C. On a room-temperature liquid the other three do the same job for less, and each of them is rated as its own sheet says, so the decision is a chemistry and temperature question rather than a fit question; nothing about the pad, the strapping or the plumbing changes between them. If the ceiling will not take six feet plus a fill line, the 5740100N42 puts a slightly smaller pour on a 47 inch base at 59 inches and is the shape to compare. If height is free and floor is not, the 1011200C26 goes narrower and taller still at 35 by 82 inches for a little more volume.

Height or floor the limit? The table has both shapes; freight to your ZIP is quoted on each row, or call 866-418-1777 with the site.

An eighteen inch manway and no outlet size on the sheet

• Outlet: the field reads "1 Manway / Lid" and the sheet gives no bottom fitting size at all. That is printed as it stands and never read as a pipe size. Tell us the liquid, its working temperature and the draw-off you want when you order, and we confirm what this molding accepts and in what material before anything is cut, because a gasket that seals cold is not automatically the right one at the top of this tank's range.
• Listed opening: an 18 inch threaded, vented manway at 72 inches. Eighteen inches is generous for a tank this size and it is the reason this shell is easy to live with: a fill line, a vent and a probe all land through it with room left for a cleaning wand.
• Reaching it: six feet puts the rim above eye level, so a tied-off platform ladder or a short fixed platform, and a permanent fill connection at the manway rather than a hose handed up.
• Fill and vent: a dip tube to the floor so a warm liquid does not cascade six feet and flash in the headspace, the vent piped outdoors on anything that fumes, sized to the delivery pump and not to the nearest port. Service limit: 140 F / 60 C. Warranty: 3 year.

Heat is what makes the base plumbing a discipline rather than a detail. Polyethylene moves with temperature, so whatever is fitted below the shell is carried on its own stand off the pad with a flexible connector between tank and hard pipe; a run that lines up cold will not line up hot, and a rigid pipe bolted to the shell feeds every bit of that movement straight back into the wall. The headspace ages before the wetted wall does, so the light goes on the band above the liquid line whenever the manway is open, and the date goes on the log. Keep the cover threaded shut between deliveries, label the wall with the one liquid inside in letters a driver reads from the cab, and where the site freezes as well as heats, protect the base piping and the first valve rather than the body.

Plant chemical rooms that want the hotter limit

This is the tank for a crowded room with a warm liquid in it: a heated caustic or cleaning solution at a food or beverage plant, a warm process makeup tank on a finishing line, a boiler or cooling chemistry feed, a laundry chemical bulk supply, and any outdoor pad in a hot climate where the liquid never really cools overnight. Whether the cross-linked wall is genuinely the right buy for your chemical, or whether a high-density wall would carry it for less, is worth settling before the order rather than after; our guide to when cross-linking matters for chemistry duty takes it chemical by chemical. Where a rule or an insurer wants the liquid inside a second wall, the Captor double wall freeboard guide works out how much usable volume a contained vessel really returns at this size. A private fire reserve is a separate specification in a water-rated vessel, which the fire-water reservoir design guide covers.

West Virginia to the pad, eighty pounds at class 300

The sheet gives class 300 and 80 pounds shipping weight from Philippi, West Virginia, which is a short haul to most of the eastern half of the country and a long one to the far west, so the lane is worth pricing rather than assuming: put your ZIP into the freight cost estimator and the listed price is before freight. A tall, light parcel prices on the space it takes on the deck, not on the scale. Eighty pounds comes off by hand with two people or on a pallet jack, straps under the body and never a sling through the manway, and it sets down on the cured pad rather than on gravel it will be dragged off later. Then a cold water fill to the manway, held long enough to walk the base and the pad edge twice, drained and dried before anything warm goes in; the cold test is the cheap way to find a pad problem and a hot liquid is the expensive one. Write the service limit on the wall beside the liquid's name, because the next operator on this tank will not have read the sheet. The vent screen is the cheapest part on the tank and the one that saves it; look at it every time the manway opens.