I have just had my second delivery of fuel, I wasn’t here for the first 3 years ago. The heating engineer is saying that the bottom 18cm of fuel is unusable…the tank is a 1500l capacity and the full mark is 152cm from the ground, so this equates to around 100l per 10cm. So that means when the fuel gets to the 18cm level, around 180l, I have to order more fuel. Does this sound about right, cos it sounds a bit odd to me that you have to carry 180l of unusable fuel??
Yes Tony, each time I fill up, I have the strange feeling I own an aircraft or an ocean going cruiser, the house is large around 900 m2 spread over 3 floors and the heating system runs 24 radiators plus the hot water. We are just looking at converting the unit from Heating fuel to the compressed biomass pellets fed by an automatic hopper.
I will let members know the different costs when I get the quotes in.
Did you try saying "take it out, I only wanted 500l" ? No? yeah, don't suppose I would have bothered either. There's only so many Gallic shrugs one can take :-)
Hi Tony,
About every 5 years we let our tank run down to around 600 litres (5000 litre tank)and we have a service where by they pump out all the oil in the tank after agitating it and filter it via the truck with a filtration unit on it, filter out all the unwanted elements and then replace the filtered fuel back in the tank.
They do this a few times and amazing what ends up in the filtration collector.
We lose some litres but not sure its a lot, its more about prevention for the heating system.
Regards
Peter
all petrochemical fuels are classified for specific usage.
the highest standard of fuel is aviation fuel, then petrol, then road diesel, followed by marine diesel and final heating oil, which is full of dirt, it has just been put through a basic cracking system in the petro chemical plant to make it usable.
Shirley. In answer to your questions:-
3rd to last para. No & yes, normally changed by Heating Engineer if & when required
2nd to last para. Probably
Good luck
Look on the bright side Tony. Unlike the fuel above it, this lot you only have to pay for once :-)
There is always a difference between the bottom of the tank & the fuel outlet. It used to be called "the sludge space" yonks ago. It's there to ensure any muck or water caused by condensation can't be pulled through to the burner & is quite normal. You only "lose" the fuel contained in this space once so if it was there when you bought the house it's not you who paid for it :-) You have or should have been advised by the tanker driver not to use the boiler for a while after a delivery. This is to let any "muck" in this space which is disturbed by the delivery settle again to the tank bottom. The tank normally has a slope away from the fuel outlet to a "sludge cock" which is a valve to drain off any water etc accumulated in the tank. This slope means you probably don't have as much unusable fuel as you think.