Disaster... almost

[gerard b]

I had a bit of a disaster yesterday, I filled my preheat/drying tank with wvo and heated it up while circulating through the diffuser to dry the oil before processing. I went inside to have my tea, about an hour later the power went in the house, a cb had tripped at the fuse board, as I went to check it out, I saw smoke billowing out the shed door where I do my processing. I ran to the shed and could see oil all over the shed floor. The connection at the sight tube on the tank had blown off and the pump emptied the contents of the tank all over the shed. When the level of oil got below the immersion heater, it started to burn. Thankfully the cb tripped at the board and shut it off.

A bit of a lesson here for everybody, check your connections on your processing tanks regularly. A level sensor would also be a good idea, to trip off the heater before the level of oil goes below it. And oh how I wish I had a bund. That was 200lts of the best oil I had that I was saving for winter use. It was superb rape seed oil that I had been saving all year, light yellow in colour and and titrating at 1 to 2. It was I'm afraid the last of the good oil I had in reserve and I now have no oil to get me through the winter months.

All in all the experience was a good lesson if a costly one but in hindsight it could have been much worse, if it had happened at the reaction stage and methanol had been present, well I think you can all imagine what might have happened. Be careful out there.

[Tony]

Glad to hear the worst that happened was lost oil.

Time to add a level switch of some sort!

[Head Womble]

We've all had mishaps, it's part of the game we play.

If the CP tripped you'll probably find the heater has blown.
Not that I want to add to the bad news, but it's better you know now than when you have a tank full of oil.

[Glycer-rides]

We've all had mishaps, it's part of the game we play.

Aye, 'tis true.
Could have been worse...

I considered using the permanent type of sight tube off the side of the 205 drum tank but discounted it for this very failure mode.
When you make good, consider putting an isolation valve on the sight tube or doing it GL style, T'd off the pump.

[julianf]

Personally, ive always put a valve at the bottom of the sight tube. 

The best sight tube position is just before the pump (as on the GL, i think?)

Sure, it means that, whilst the pump is on, its not accurate, but it does mean that you can empty the tube (by manipulating the valves on the pump and tube) and then shut the valve to keep the sight tube empty whilst running the batch.

[therecklessengineer]

As a general rule, any connection to a tank should have an isolation valve on it.

The exception is a breather.

[alifreddy]

I can get 3 day old used rapeseed oil and sunflower oil from McDonalds can pour it straight in your processor 60 p per litre

[THE-DOLPHIN]

THERE YOU GO NEVER LEAVE YOUR ROOM FOR LONGER THAN FIVE OR TEN MINITUES VERY PLEASED YOU DIDNT HAVE TO MUCH OF A DISASTER

[THE-DOLPHIN]

I DO HAVE RAPESEED OIL I AM IN DORSET IF YOU ARE CLOSE

[nigelb]

As a general rule, any connection to a tank should have an isolation valve on it.

The exception is a breather.

This is the best advice I've seen on this thread.

As an aside nothing IMHO should be jubilee clipped either. These sort of fixings always have the potential to fail.

[Julian]

Welcome to the wiki and forum, The Dolphin.

Any chance of using lower case in your posts?  It's much easier on the eye and upper case is tantamount to shouting on a forum!