We are in the midst of swapping oil tanks – from an old metal one to something that is apparently ‘bunded’ which is obviously much better and is certainly an excellent new word for my vocabulary if only I know what it meant. Now to the urban mind, swapping oil tanks seems like it ought to be a simple matter: install new oil tank, take oil out of old tank and put it into new tank, plumb in new tank, take away old tank. Wrong. First of all, the plumber had a better idea: install new oil tank, link old oil tank to new oil tank, let some oil run from old tank to new tank, plumb new tank into house. (Only of course what actually happend was: install new oil tank, link old oil tank to new oil tank, let oil run from old tank to new tank, plumb new tank into house, introduce muck into Rayburn intake, spend three days eating sandwiches and salad). And that made a certain sort of sense, especially when we had had many dire warnings about what happens to people who pump oil from one tank to another and stir up the sediment and end up with the Rayburn engineer moving in permanently with them to save time. There was still a few hundred litres of oil in the old tank, but we thought we’d let it settle for a while, and let the Rayburn bed in with the new tank and avoid airlocks* and all sorts of other nasties. And besides, meanwhile more oil had arrived – unordered – 900 litres of it – aka a lot of money. But that was still okay, because oil is just going up and up in price and maybe it would be better to buy it now rather than wait until we had to sell off a spare limb in order to fill the tank later. And then men came and pumped out our old tank and took it and the oil away. And this was not okay because we had paid for that oil, and we didn’t know who these men were or where our oil was going or when we might get paid for it. And then finally, after we had talked to the letting agent about all this to-ing and fro-ing of oil, more men came and tried to pump the oil out of the new tank as well. At which point the other half put his foot down, and sent them away.
I think some sort of compromise has been reached whereby they stop pumping oil back and forth and instead calculate how much oil they’ve delivered, minus how much oil they have taken away and we pay them for the difference. Hopefully before America declares war on Iran, or Venezuela, or Texas and the price of oil shoots up again. It seems to me like the obvious answer to the situation, but I’m probably wrong. After all, what do we city folk know about oil tanks? Very little, it would seem.
* Like Warlocks, but worse
A bund is an enclosure large enough to contain the contents of the tank. Your new tank is probably self bunded. That is, it has a tank within a tank so that if it should leak it doesn’t. If you see what I mean.
Do make sure the men pumping oil are official men – oil theft is quite common and not necessarily insurable. I worry about ours.
there – I knew it was a good word. Now I just have to work out a way of introducing ‘self-bunding’ into my conversation
I’m glad that Sarah has commented as she has because I couldn’t find what it meant in this context! Please let us know if you do manage to use it in conversation!
I had to read through this twice as I got confused. That’s me, not you, as I’m feeling a bit jaded today. Blame that on yet another drab, dreary day here! xx
Flighty – I don’t think it’s you, I think it’s the inherent complexity of it; we’re pretty confused ourselves, frankly, and it’s our oil
Ahhh. Thank you Sarah. I’ve seen Bunded Diesel tanks on site before and just assumed the double wall thing was… well for added protection, like wearing two fleeces in cold weather, or two pairs of socks with boots.
This is the point where I ask why your Rayburn is burning oil. One of the houses I lived in as a youth had a Rayburn. It worked on logs and coal. (We also had a completely inadequate oil fired central heating system, but it only really got used to ‘keep the chill off’ the house in the winter.)
As far as I remember, we had coal deliveries at various times throughout the year these were dumped in the coal shed by the coalmen. I think it was four times a year we had a trailer load of logs. One each season. It was a lord of the manor/Estate type thing, so I don’t think we paid for them, or not that much. Obviously we used less logs in the Summer, so the quarterly deliveries worked out throughout the year.
After the tipper trailer on the back of the tractor had dumped them in the yard, my brother and myself were sent out to move the load into the woodshed. At some point after the delivery of the logs I was sent to the woodshed and spent a couple of hours splitting some of them with an axe. I think this was because I was the oldest, so I was meant to be sensible with the axe. Plus I was willing to do it, as it was cool to mess with the axe.
It was then a case of chopping some every so often, or just chopping some, when you went out to the shed and there were none already chopped.
Even though the the rest of the house was generally cold in winter. The kitchen was always warm, even first thing in the morning, because you’d got half a tonne of cast iron you’d spent the last few days/weeks/months heating up.
The point of this comment? Er. Nostalgia and… Get a solid fuel/wood burning Rayburn and a good source of logs
Ah, it’s a rented house so we get the Rayburn we’re given, and we’re grateful to have one at all – otherwise wood burning (and a wood burning stove) would be the way to go.
We have a bunded tank at our depot just in case someone backs a bus into it. Not sure having two layers would stop a leak after being hit by an 11 tonne bus.
Perhaps you need a bund for your bund?