New plant in the making - building work nearly done

[julesandtash]

I am rebuilding my plant to incorporate the new in processor titrated water wash, hot water (bio heated of course) heating of the oil and melting of solids and some new control gear.

First stage has been tanking the walls of the cold and damp building it is in (single skin concrete block and concrete roof) and building a new bund. There is tanking membrane against the walls, a 2" gap filled with rockwool and battens, then 18mm OSB boards fixed to it as the inner skin.



Here is the tanked walls and the bund structure. It is 1 metre wide, 3 metres long and 400mm deep in the middle. The floor slopes at 1 in 55 from each end towards the centre sump.



To make the bund bio proof, I lined it with GRP (ie polyester two part resin reinforced with chopped strand fibreglass matting.
Here is the 20Kg of resin, 10Kg of top coat (not visible in the picture) and 10 sq. m of mat.



Fibreglassing all done



Battens on for tiling - the whitish tubes are the old electrical conduits which are being replaced as part of the rework



Tiling going up - suddenly the whole room is looking much brighter



Getting there - what a far nicer place to put a processor. Just need to clean the dropped tile cement off of the fibreglass before I put the oil tank in there.




I've just a got a bit more grouting to do and a few cut tiles then I can recruit some labour to lift the steel oil settling tank and the processor into the bund. Both are going to sit on wooden blocks to lift them clear of the floor by around 300mm and the blocks will be sized to make the oil tank and processor sit level whereas the floor of the bund slopes.

[greasemonkey]

Very pretty. That's tidier than what I live in!

Is the flowcoat bio proof? I guess if drips and spills will be pretty rare if your setup is as good as the bund. Bio will destroy normal grp and flowcoat, but a drip shouldn't be a problem if its wiped up.
Bio proof resin is £70 a litre. Thats what I got quoted anyway.

[julesandtash]

Drips certainly dont seem to hurt it - I made up a small piece then dripped some bio on and left it - nothing happened.

Maybe I will make up another sample and leave it submerged in a jar of bio to see what happens.

I seem to recall that, once cured, fibreglass is pretty resilient to bio. I certainly hope so as I wont be buying bio proof resin at that price. There is, as it stands, about 15 litres of resin and 8 litres of top coat in that bund.

[Tony]

Wow that is really nice work Jules.  Now I have a severe case of shed envy as I'd love a built in spill system.  I wondered about a grate over such a system, so no need to worry about mopping spills on the floor.

Very impressive!

[Head Womble]

Looking good jules.

You're going to have to change the way you work now, as I remember you're not the cleanest worker (just like me).

[julesandtash]

That is exactly why I am doing all this. If there is an option for me to get dirty and spread oil everywhere then I will. The more that is in place to prevent oil finding it's way onto the floor, then the path, the into the house the better.

I have been dwelling on ideas for a while and now finally can afford to spend some time and a few pennies (a surprising amount actually, it soon adds up) on the plant room.

I am also simplifying a lot of things so hopefully Tash will be able to help out with bio making (if she can walk into somewhere relatively clean and just flip a switch or two or press a few buttons then she is more likely to help). The state the old processing area had got into was quite depressing.

[Tony]

Mine is quite depressing at the moment.  I have planks down so that containers don't get squidgy from the floor.  People ask to see the plant but I'm often too ashamed to show them (unless it's a fellow bio buddy, in which case they know the score already).  So yes, entirely get where you're coming from.

[julesandtash]

Tash read this thread and says that she feels your pain there Tony!
She also didn't swear at me when she read the bit about helping and pressing some buttons.

[Tony]

That is quite restrained   Suzanne doesn't come in my shed because of the huge spiders that guard it.

[julesandtash]

I installed the dispensing pump and filters this evening - I needed to since although there was 300 litres or so of fuel in the outdoor storage tank, the low fuel light was on in Tash's RangeRover.
I need to get power to it properly as, at the moment it is just plugged into an extension lead but at least it is in the right place and fixed to the wall. We even cleaned up the filter housings before putting them in although really my long serving TAM105 could do with a coat of blue paint to make it look nice.

[Julian]

OK, that's it, next weekend I'm going to flock wallpaper the shed, carpet the floor and install mood lighting.

Jules that's a blinding piece of work.  Don't think you'll work any cleaner ... but it will be easier to clean up the mess!

You mentioned "top coat".  I've used gellcoat when molding, but I've not come across top coat.  Is it like a tougher coloured resin to protect the layup?

 

[julesandtash]

Yup, it is a bit thicker than the resin and mid grey in colour. You mix it with hardener in the same way as you do the resin (same ratio) and then paint it on - the instructions say to aim for a 0.5mm thick layer. It is certainly very hard when cured.

The products I used were Crystic Roof materials from Scott Bader.

Strange as you mention the mood lighting. After I smashed a 4 foot fluorescent tube (the bits of which fell on my head and shattered all over me) when moving those sheets of OSB around in a confined space - Tash suggested installing LED tape lighting along the roof - exactly the same as I have in my caravan.

It's actually a good idea - the tape is IP65 rated so safe enough to use anywhere. It runs on 12V so it's really easy to make a battery backed up power supply to power it so the lights wont go out if the power trips or there is a power cut.

[greasemonkey]

I used to be a GRP laminater for a few years. The top coat is called  a "flow coat" It can be bought ready mixed, or mixed from resin, a pigment, and a thickening powder. As it cures, a tough wearing wax layer rises to the surface. As mentioned, it protects the laminate. Here endeth the lesson.

[Chug]

looking squeaky clean Jules, I have a grp shower tray that I've used under my settling tank for several years with no bad effect from a puddle of bio sitting in it.

[julesandtash]

I have been busy doing some more stuff.
Here is the rather substantial timber pack for the 800 litre steel oil settling and heating tank to sit on.
Those timbers are 4" X 4" tanalised. It is probably over engineered but that tank is around 900Kg when full to the top so it needs to be reasonably strong.



Here is the steel tank in position. It used to be covered in rockwool and a layer of silver bubble wrap prior to being moved - hence the bits of rockwool stuck to it and it's current un-appealing appearance. The plan is to surround it with 25mm celotex (including the lid) which will keep it warm and also look nice. The dispensing pump that draws from a floating pickup in the outdoor storage tank and feeds a nozzle on the drive can be seen above the tank, along with it's filters.



The old outlet ports and heater flange now blanked off. I need to fit new ones into the end panel but first of all need to put the central heating radiator in the bottom of the tank for the boiler powered hot water heating of the oil. The immersion will go just above that as a backup source of heat. The 1.5" drain valve will go as low as possible and the 1" outlet fitting will go just above   the radiator so none of the 'dead zone' is sucked into the pump.



Next steps is fitting the radiator and tank ports, then insulating the tank and getting some oil in there. The processor is stripped down and ready to move into the other end of the bund once I grout the remaining tiles.
After that I just need to reassemble the processor, re-insulate it, fit the pump and pipework to the storage/heating tank, put all the hot water heating control gear in place and get it all up and running.
I suspect I will be making a few batches on electric heating before I get it all sorted.