Snyder Industries 4750 Gallon HDPE Open Top Batch Storage Tank in White

The duty: product that gets worked from above

An open top batch tank is bought by people who have to get at the contents. That is the whole duty and everything else on this page follows from it. In a batching operation somebody is charging solids into liquid, watching the level and the colour, dropping in a mixer shaft, taking a sample off the top, hosing the wall down between runs or reaching in to break a bridge. None of that is possible through an 18 inch opening in a closed roof, and all of it is straightforward when the top of the vessel is simply open. Snyder gives this one 120 inches across, which is the number the duty actually turns on: a ten foot diameter gives a person standing on a platform real reach into the vessel and gives a mixer a wide, shallow body of liquid to move rather than a narrow deep one. At 101 inches tall, the top edge sits a little over eight feet off the pad, which is a height you work from a platform or a mezzanine rather than a step ladder, and that platform is part of the installation, not an afterthought. Plan it before the tank arrives. The second half of the duty is what open top costs you, and it should be said plainly rather than buried. An open vessel is open to the room: to dust, to condensation off a roof deck, to anything that falls, to evaporation and to whatever the air in that building carries. It is also open to a person, which is a serious matter on a tank that is over eight feet tall and holds 4750 gallons. Guard rails, a fixed access platform and a written procedure for who goes up there are not optional extras on this shape of vessel, they are the reason it can be used safely. Where the process does not actually need access, a closed tank is the better tank. Where the process does need it, nothing else will do, and a lid retrofitted onto an open top is a worse answer than either. Size the vessel to the batch rather than to the floor space with our tank sizing calculator, and work the freeboard and the turnover through with the tank sizing guide before you settle on the capacity. The foundation is the other half of the decision. This is a flat bottomed vessel carrying 39615 pounds of water when it is full, and it spreads that load across its whole 120 inch footprint, which is exactly what a properly sized slab is for. Our concrete pad sizing article for above-ground polyethylene tanks works through the framework and the point at which a pad stops being a slab question and becomes a structural one.

Two open tops printed beside it

The three parts on this sheet are a straight choice about shape, and the numbers make it for you. The 3600 gallon tank is narrower at 102 inches and shorter at 108 inches, so it fits a tighter bay and needs less reach from the operator, at the cost of capacity. This tank is the wide, low one: 120 inches across and 101 inches tall, the lowest top edge of the three, which is the easiest of the three to work over and the easiest to get a mixer bridge across. The 5800 gallon tank keeps the same 120 inch footprint and goes up to 125 inches tall, so it buys capacity purely in height and puts the working edge two feet higher than this one. That is the trade: on the same pad, more gallons only come as more height, and more height on an open top means more platform. Note also that the 5800 gallon tank is listed at 1500 pounds empty against 600 pounds here, and the 3600 gallon tank at 690 pounds; the sheet gives those weights and we print them as given without explaining the spread. If you are choosing between the three, decide the working height first and let the capacity follow, because on an open vessel the height is what the operator lives with every shift.

Torn between two rows? Call 866-418-1777 with the liquid and the ceiling height, or ask for a quote on both and compare the freight.

Open at the top, and the sheet lists nothing over it

• The connection: none published. The outlet field on this sheet is empty, so this page names no outlet, no size and no position. Whatever penetration the installation needs is specified against the drawing and confirmed before anything is cut.
• The top: open, as the product name gives it. No lid, no manway, no cover and no lid size appears on this sheet. There is no seal on this vessel and this page claims none.
• Venting: not applicable and not claimed. An open top does not need a vent path because the top is the path, which is one genuine simplification this shape brings.
• Rating: 1.9 specific gravity, given on the served sheet as 1.9 with a maximum of 15.87 pounds per gallon, against 8.34 pounds per gallon for water. Maximum contents on this sheet is 75268 pounds.
• Service limit: none published. There is no maximum operating temperature field and no warranty term on this sheet, so neither is stated here. Ask us with the contents and the temperature named and we will get the answer in writing.
• Dimensions: 120 inches by 120 inches by 101 inches, in high density linear polyethylene, white. White lets an operator see the level and the condition of the contents from the platform, which on an open vessel is worth more than it sounds.

Tell us what goes in it and how it gets mixed when you enquire. On an open top the access arrangement is the specification, and it is cheaper to design before the tank ships than to bolt onto a vessel already standing on a pad.

Plants that charge by hand and empty on a schedule

This vessel goes into operations where the liquid is made rather than merely stored. Batching and blending, where dry product goes in from a bag or a bulk bag over the top and a mixer runs until the batch is right. Process holding between stages, where the contents are checked, sampled and adjusted rather than left alone. Wash and rinse duty, where the tank itself is cleaned out between runs and an open top is what makes that a twenty minute job instead of a confined space entry. Reclaim and recovery, where whatever comes back off the line is collected, looked at and sent on or sent away. Water handling is a common home for this shape as well: a 4750 gallon open vessel works as a break tank, a settling stage, or a holding step in a reuse train, and our industrial water reuse topology article covers how those trains get sequenced so a quality band is not lost between stages. Sites that hold water for private fire protection ask about this size too; the sizing discipline for that duty is a different discipline, and it is worked through in our fire-water reservoir design guide, including what freezing weather does to a stored volume. The habit that keeps an open top useful for a decade is simple. Keep something over it when nothing is happening, keep the platform clear, and wash the wall down while the residue is still soft. An open vessel rewards housekeeping more than any other shape in the catalogue.

Oversize out of Chowchilla at six hundred pounds empty

This tank is made at Chowchilla, California, and it is the only product in this group out of that plant; the sheet names the plant and leaves the shipping states field empty, and we print it as it stands. Both the freight class field and the ship mode field read OVS, and the shipping size is listed at 120 by 120 by 101 inches around a shell weighing 600 pounds. That combination is the whole freight story in one line: the weight is nothing and the shape is everything. A ten foot diameter vessel is an oversize move, which means it is booked rather than simply ordered, and the receiving end needs a clear path wide enough to take it, room to set it down and somebody expecting it. Price the lane to your ZIP with the freight cost estimator; the listed price is before freight. Have the pad finished, level and cured before the truck is scheduled, because a 120 inch open top with nowhere to go is an expensive thing to leave on a yard. Check the top edge and the wall for transit damage before the driver leaves, then fill it with water first and walk the perimeter at the full 39615 pounds before any product goes near it. The first fill is the only cheap time to find a problem, so do it in daylight with someone watching the base.