Environmental Science & Engineering - www.esemag.com - November 2004
Comments? send them to the editor.
Ticking time bomb – oil storage tanks in the basement of office and apartment buildings
Thousands of apartment and
office buildings have old steel
heating oil storage tanks in or
below their basements or subbasements.
Many of these oil tanks
were installed at the time the buildings
were built in the 1940s, 1950s and
1960s and they are much larger than
doors, stairs and hallways connecting
their location to the outside. With age
these tanks can deteriorate and leak
fuel oil into the ground. New technologies
now make it easy and cost-efficient
to refurbish these tanks in place,
saving thousands of dollars in replacement
costs and virtually eliminating
potential pollution problems.
Armor Shield Tank Lining and
Repair goes right inside steel tanks,
sand blasting, repairing and then virtually
making a fiberglass and plastic
tank on the interior of the older steel
tank. Jeff Coner of Armor Shield states
that “corrosion is a funny animal, and
the overall structural integrity of most
of the steel tanks we examine is almost
as good as the day it was installed. The
problems come from isolated corrosion
cells making minute permeations
through the steel shell of the tank.
Allowed to grow, these corrosion permeations
can go from a minor weeping
to a quarter inch hole if not addressed.
A lot of oil can escape from a small
hole, and it doesn’t take a tanker load
to cause a pollution problem.”
He explained, “The refurbishing is
sort of like a tank in a tank approach.
The fiberglass and plastic lining we
fabricate inside the steel tank adds an
additional structural wall and is not
subject to corrosion. The sandblasting
process conditions the interior
steel tank wall before we add the
fiberglass and plastic. This helps
guard against future internal corrosion
problems.”
When asked about what the longterm
effect of a leaking tank and the
environmental cleanup process, he
responded, “We don’t do environmental
studies or cleanups, so I
wouldn’t comment about that. It’s our
job to find minor problems, or situations
before they become problems,
and remedy them, before you get to
the point of needing environmental
services.”
When asked about the costs related
to the process, he commented,
“Depending on the size and location of
a tank, it can run from 10% to 30% of
the final costs related to replacing a
tank.” He continued, “What we do isn’t
rocket science, it’s just good, sound
engineering process.”
The Armor Shield Tank Lining and
Repair Network has lined and repaired
over 100,000 tanks since 1967.
Contact e-mail: info@armorshieldlining.com.
See our home page on how to order your subscription. We regret we can
only accept orders from Canada.