Water Removal from  Oil Tanks

Water Removal from Oil Tanks

Over time heating oil tanks accumulate condensate water. As water is heavier than kerosene or gas oil it sits on the bottom of heating oil tanks.

When water gets in the heating oil, with time fungus starts to grow and creates sludge on the bottom of heating oil tanks. Usually it takes a few years to collect a sufficient amount of water which could negatively effect the heating system performance.

Problems start when water gets to the fuel draw level of the outlet valve. If water gets into the oil feed line, the boiler will stop working. Usually in the feed line there is a filter which filters oil from debris or water.
Some filters fill up with water and stop feeding fuel to prevent boiler damage. Some filters filter only from debris and let’s water through. In this case the boiler will stop working.

We offer oil tank cleaning and water removal. There are few ways to get water out. The first and recommended method is to drain the fuel into another holding tank and clean the tank.
If you transfer the contents of your heating oil tank into a transparent holding tank, you will see that the water will separate immediately from the bottom of the oil tank.
Then you can filter usable oil into your cleaned oil tank and leave the remaining water and sludge in the holding tank.

If the fuel is not clean for filtering using a 10 micron filter then replace or clean the oil filter, clean the fuel line from water. Then bleed the boiler and boiler the should be working again.

The second option is to use a long pipe which reaches into the bottom of the fuel tank and pump any water out from oil the tank; making sure not to take all of the fuel is out.
When you start to see clean oil it means that the majority of water has been pumped out.
This method will not assure that all sludge has gone but the heating oil system should work anyway. This method has few things to pay attention to when pumping. Such as what angle the fuel tank sits on, how high and where is the fuel draw point, what equipment should be used.
Not all heating oil tanks can be cleaned with this method.