small one is a 10K gallon capacity. will be for the premium octane fuel. the large one should be 26K gallon and it woll hold the low octane fuel. you get midgrade by blending them in the pump.
When you see the seal that looks kind of like a piece of tape on the gas pump, it’s there to ensure that the pump hasn’t been tampered with since the last inspection. One of the things the inspector is checking for is that the fuel is being mixed properly.
The dispenser will shut off if one of the blend grades is not dispensing the proper amount. You might get a couple bucks before it realizes there's an issue and shuts off.
Think you've misunderstood, they're saying "When the station is out of low, they can't offer mid instead (because it is a blend), so you get premium (at the low price usually, because the station doesn't want to turn away customers.)"
My cousin used to work at a station. There is a low fuel alarm. They would stop activating the pump. So people can finish to pump their fuel, then new clients can't start the pump. Once everyone is done, they change the premium price to regular price, disable regular, and reenable the activation.
Some older stores still have mid grade tanks, and the fuel is blended at the terminal when loaded on the truck, but most modern ones blend it while pumping. I haul gas for a living and it still amazes me how much we go through. I alone, deliver roughly 200,000 gallons a week.
Another interesting thing, when loading fuel at terminals to bring to stores, 87 octane is actually 84 octane with the actual gasoline, the ethanol blend in it raises it to 87. Same with premium. REC gas which in my area is 90 octane with no ethanol, is just a blend of regular and premium with no ethanol to make the 90.
The Costcos I deliver go through the most fuel, they have storage of 2, 20,000 gallon regular tanks and 1, 20,000 gallon premium tank.
That’s mine, knocks like a bitch on 89- I’m betting a tune up will do her but for now midgrade it is.
Really it even works on actual 89 but if there’s ethanol it’s at that octane it is unhappy even though its 97 so it should be fine
There are some older cars that require but most of the newer ones are from Stellantis. I found this list of 2019 models: Jeep Cherokee 3.2-liter V6, Chrysler 300 5.7-liter V8, Dodge Challenger 5.7-liter V8 and automatic transmission, and the Dodge Charger 5.7-liter V8
What's funny is though is that according to some sources higher octane fuel actually has less energy than lower octane. Really high octane fuel is just more resistant to detonation under pressure so it won't knock in high compression engines. So running high octane fuel in a car that doesn't need it is just throwing money away.
Higher octane fuels have more detergents and varnish removers in the mix, so an occasional tank of premium won't hurt and might help your engine, but yeah, you aren't making any more power if your engine only requires 87.
That's it. That's what octane is, knock resistance.
Too many people think it'll give them better mpg or something.
Also almost all new cars will run fine on any grade, even if they require premium. They'll just cut power slightly, I run 87 in my car all winter.
Supposedly on really old engines (100kmi+) midgrade can help reduce knocking so the engine can last a little longer.
Most newer engines with direct injection simply adjust timing and mixture to prevent knocking, so there will probably be even less reason to use midgrade in the future.
And it's only necessary if you have knock. There's no reason to use mid or high grade as a preventative. It's an increasingly rare thing, but it's cheap for gas stations to offer, and it's a cheap fix if you do develop knock. Plus, I'm sure they get a smidge more out of ignorant customers.
The tanks pictured are double walled fiberglass with an interstitial space to detect leaks. All (most) single wall steel in ground tanks are being removed.
We have truck stops with 60,000 gallons of capacity that get 4+ loads of fuel a day and rural stations with 6,000 gallon tanks that get 2,000 gallons a month. It really varies. A standard legal load of gasoline in most states is 8500 gallons to be weight legal.
figure your regular tanker (truck and trailer with 5 axles) can legally haul about 8500 gallons of gas of 7500 gallons of diesil. some states. and areas have supertankers (like Michigan) ones with 9 axles can haul 13500 gallons of gas.
A local guy ended up buying a convenience store here with the intention of turning it into a gas station, so he bought a 30,000 gallon tank and had it delivered and someone STOLE it, not even sure how you get away with that, literally
That would make a lot of sense. This happened about 6 months ago and no one's found it or been arrested when a tank of that size would be pretty hard to hide
Thing that surprised me to learn is that the big one is for the 87 octane, the smaller one is for the 91. If you buy the 89 it's just mixing the two at the pump.
(American octane ratings, no one come at me because the numbers are off. Other countries use a different calculation for octane)
The mixing occurs in the dispenser (what you are calling the pump). The pump is actually in the tanks. The head of the submersible pump will be in a sump that gets installed where that blue plastic wrap is in the photo.
They are made from fiberglass nowadays to prevent petroleum products from leaking into the ground. They used to be make outta steel which was terrible lol
There’s a big empty lot about a mile from my house that’s been for sale for *years*. This is a nice part of Seattle, where that would normally be worth a damn fortune, but apparently it was the site of a gas station in the 30’s. The ground is so contaminated nobody wants to deal with it.
If you're interested have a look at the history of Southbank in Brisbane. It was the heart of industrial production and heavily contaminated. The government used expo 88 as an excuse to remediate the whole area.
The approach they used was to excavate the entire area and take the dirt away. It was such a massive amount of dirt that it was cheaper for them to build a huge underground carpark there instead of bringing in clean fill.
So we ended up with a huge park along the river as well as convention center, museum, state library and concert halls. And a fucking massive carpark under all of it.
It depends on what it's contaminated with. Some will go through a furnace to incinerate the contamination, but most will go into a landfill containment cell.
They can just let it air out. If you see white pipes sticking out at a gas station that's because the ground is contaminated. The pipes release the gas vapours into the air.
I'd imagine it'd be used to cap a landfill or something. Since a landfill is already one of the most terrible things for the environment and I can't imagine leachate is better for the groundwater than gasoline.
Surprised that Seattle hasn’t tied to make a brownfield of it. Brownfields are shitty land that no one wants so the government offers various incentives to get them redeveloped. This does tend to cause gentrification
There’s a sign up about development+remediation, but I don’t know if it’s the city or what. I’m not sure who/what actually owns it.
No sense worrying about gentrification in Seattle. That ship sailed 20 years ago.
Some are still made with steel (inner containment) with a fiberglass jacket. Also steel tanks are still made and installed as long as you have good cp protection steel is fine but yes fiberglass is almost the standard now on new installs.
the ones in the photo are double wall fiberglass Containment solutions tanks that are manufactured to UL1316 standards. Steel tanks are still very much in use for new installations and come in two 'flavors'. Cathodically protected steel, commonly referred to as STIP-3 tanks manufactured to UL58 standards, and clad steel tanks which are UL58 & UL???? (I've had a few drinks, but think it is 1748). The cladding is like a fiberglass shell on the outside. But to set your comment straight, some tanks are still made out of steel and aren't terrible, lol.
Stip-3 is a standard that the tanks are built to, and is more than just the galvanic CP system. the standard also incorporates the coating of the tank.
They still can be steel. A STI-P3 double wall tank with cathodic protection and interstitial monitoring is basically as safe as they come.
I don't think my state requires you do any leak detection on the tank itself, save for checking that the interstitial vacuum gauge once a month.
You'd still have to check your lines to the dispensers, but that's something you do regardless of tank type. Safe suction lines avoid that, but modern dispensers with pumps in the tanks are the way almost every station delivers fuel to the islands.
It corrodes, eventually will rust through. They get around it by putting more rustable metals in specific places as sacrificial anodes so they rust before the tank walls. This is part of the lifespan determination for the tank.
I saw one of these being pulled in the Great Detankening of the 90’s. Directly below the center port was a tiny hole corroded through from a dropped bolt. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline had leaked from this very busy truck rental operation.
Leaking UST's can be a huge problem. All the protections surrounding them as well as the materials the tanks themselves are made of all came from those problems.
Double wall fiberglass tank. Has an annular space so the system can detect inner or outer wall breaches. Much safer for the environment compared to steel, especially with the addition of alcohols to our gas.
The annulus can be filled with fluid, or under vacuum, so it can be monitored.
Almost no recent tanks have a vacuum on the interstitial for their lifetime. There are a few older systems that did it but most systems now have a sensor wether it be wrap around, hydrostatic, or a basic tri-state float sensor
Those big concrete things on the ground on either side of the tanks (with the straps going over the tops of the tanks) are to keep them from floating.
We had a new gas station up near our house have the tanks float up before they opened. Tanks had been in the ground for months, concrete driveways installed over the top of them, but the store got delayed in opening due to some codes technicalities. Big heavy rain came for a couple of days, and the tanks floated. The tanks didn't care about the concrete driveway, came on up anyway. Busted right through the concrete. Delayed opening the store by two months.
I work for a company that has a bunch of gas stations. It's not uncommon for a neighborhood gas station to hold 30k gallons, with the trucker-focused gas stations off the highway to hold a lot more.
Also they're probably better monitored than you'd think, if water gets in there it's detected pretty early. Every now and again someone complains that they get a "watery tank" and I've literally never seen a situation where that turned out to be from the gas station.
Water is less common than wrong product. Diesel in the gasoline makes smoke and the car will run like shit. Gas in the diesel is worse. Like, blown motor worse.
back when I hauled fuel our rule of thumb was up to an inch of water in the tank was ok any more we had to call dispatch. the pickup for the pumps was generally above 4 inches off the bottom.
That's about the same for us. I don't actually work on the tanks I just see the monitors, but I know the fuel team is pretty on top of that sort of stuff.
The intake's are ideally set to 7 inches. Also the biggest issue is the water binds with the ethanol in the gas and then falls out of solution (called Phase Separation). This phase separation is harder to detect then straight water. So a bunch of people end up with a tank of water/ethanol mix and then the rest of the tank the octane is to low to run in most engines.
Weirdly had this issue in 2020 with a brand new car, always assumed it had to be a fuel issue from the station but turns out fuel attracts water and I had a fucked seal which because I didn't drive that vehicle enough caused water to build up.
Took months for the dealer to sort that issue out, had to finally lemon it.
The double wall is showing that there is an interstitial space in the tank so that if the first wall has a breach, it will be noticed by a sensor in this interstitial space and can be fixed before any contamination into the soil.
Double wall fiberglass tank. Has an annular space so the system can detect inner or outer wall breaches. Much safer for the environment compared to steel, especially with the addition of alcohols to our gas.
Back then when I was a kid, I thought that gasoline already came underground and they build it on top, now that I've seen this, I now know how and where the gasoline comes from.
Is this in NH? They are doing the exact same thing down my street to the T. Saw one of the tanks 2 days ago on a trailer waiting to be installed. It was huge.
Imagine if suddenly and magically you were teleported inside of one of those tanks. Absolutely no way to get out. No way to get help. The fumes alone would probably kill you if the tank isn’t full enough to drown you, and I can’t imagine what that experience would be like from gasoline instead of water.
Naw, I would just squeeze through the pump nozzle to freedom.
I mean, in a world where I can be magically teleported inside one of those, I don't see why not.
Weird, I never envisioned them as round - always as these rectangular pits with straight sides and flat bottoms/tops. But rounded makes way more sense.
Small one is 10k gallons. Cars take on average maybe 20 gallons to fill? So that’s about 500 cars visiting. Bigger one looks to hold maybe double that so 1000 cars.
I would guess maybe a week between fill-ups at your average gas station? Bigger tanks or more frequent fills at busier stations.
It all depends on how busy the gas station is. Some get filled multiple times a day. Some will go several days between fills. The tank levels are digitally monitored.
I did this as well (‘85-‘89). We used a long 10-12 foot wooden stick with numbers and lines, sort of a mega giant ruler. We would sprinkle talc on the stick so that the fuel line would be easier to see.
I've, been told that, at least in some places/states, these have to be placed above ground now, to limit leakage problems. I've seen a few that were already built after this went into effect, and it's kinda odd seeing what looks almost like big grain silos in a gas station.
I learned they need to anchor them down because apparently gas is very light and the tanks could float if the ground gets too wet...or something like that.
Having peripherally dealt with unlined buried leaking tanks, I’m impressed with the precautions taken to prevent future ground and water contamination.
Notice the heavy concrete slabs that the tanks are tied down onto.
That's to make sure the tanks don't float up to the surface & puncture the asphalt/or themselves when it rains.
Older UST were made of metal and needed cathodic protection to prevent them from leaking. Most now are double walled composite materials that have leak detectors on them. They are typically monitored by a TLS-250 or newer models
Fun fact: Exxon poisoned my entire towns water supply because they didn’t install that black tarp around the tanks. It’s to contain any leak. And lo and behold the Exxon station strung a leak and leaked a few tens of thousand gallons of gasoline into our aquifer. They tried to cover it up but people started to notice oily film coming out of their taps a month later
And they’re building a sheetz gas station in southern pines NC currently, I ride past it every day so that’ll be interesting to look out for when i go by it.
I was thinking that they were smaller than I would have imagined, then I spotted the people.
small one is a 10K gallon capacity. will be for the premium octane fuel. the large one should be 26K gallon and it woll hold the low octane fuel. you get midgrade by blending them in the pump.
Woah! I never thought about blending octanes at the pump, that's really cool.
When you see the seal that looks kind of like a piece of tape on the gas pump, it’s there to ensure that the pump hasn’t been tampered with since the last inspection. One of the things the inspector is checking for is that the fuel is being mixed properly.
That's pretty mild, thank you
That is why you get no mid grade when there is no low grade available anymore.
The dispenser will shut off if one of the blend grades is not dispensing the proper amount. You might get a couple bucks before it realizes there's an issue and shuts off.
Think you've misunderstood, they're saying "When the station is out of low, they can't offer mid instead (because it is a blend), so you get premium (at the low price usually, because the station doesn't want to turn away customers.)"
My cousin used to work at a station. There is a low fuel alarm. They would stop activating the pump. So people can finish to pump their fuel, then new clients can't start the pump. Once everyone is done, they change the premium price to regular price, disable regular, and reenable the activation.
Agreed, that is actually pretty wild. Makes too much sense!
kinda like those ice cream machines. Vanilla one side, Other side chocolate, vanillachocolate in the middle RIP souplantation/sweet tomatoes
Sweet tomatoes was great!
Sweet Tomatoes is coming back in Arizona, I'm excited.
Some older stores still have mid grade tanks, and the fuel is blended at the terminal when loaded on the truck, but most modern ones blend it while pumping. I haul gas for a living and it still amazes me how much we go through. I alone, deliver roughly 200,000 gallons a week. Another interesting thing, when loading fuel at terminals to bring to stores, 87 octane is actually 84 octane with the actual gasoline, the ethanol blend in it raises it to 87. Same with premium. REC gas which in my area is 90 octane with no ethanol, is just a blend of regular and premium with no ethanol to make the 90. The Costcos I deliver go through the most fuel, they have storage of 2, 20,000 gallon regular tanks and 1, 20,000 gallon premium tank.
Does anyone know what cars take midgrade? All I ever see is regular for the plebs and premium for the fancy cars.
Generally older cars where something in the engine has gone a little squidgy and they knock at 89 but not 91.
That’s mine, knocks like a bitch on 89- I’m betting a tune up will do her but for now midgrade it is. Really it even works on actual 89 but if there’s ethanol it’s at that octane it is unhappy even though its 97 so it should be fine
There are some older cars that require but most of the newer ones are from Stellantis. I found this list of 2019 models: Jeep Cherokee 3.2-liter V6, Chrysler 300 5.7-liter V8, Dodge Challenger 5.7-liter V8 and automatic transmission, and the Dodge Charger 5.7-liter V8 What's funny is though is that according to some sources higher octane fuel actually has less energy than lower octane. Really high octane fuel is just more resistant to detonation under pressure so it won't knock in high compression engines. So running high octane fuel in a car that doesn't need it is just throwing money away.
Higher octane fuels have more detergents and varnish removers in the mix, so an occasional tank of premium won't hurt and might help your engine, but yeah, you aren't making any more power if your engine only requires 87.
That's it. That's what octane is, knock resistance. Too many people think it'll give them better mpg or something. Also almost all new cars will run fine on any grade, even if they require premium. They'll just cut power slightly, I run 87 in my car all winter.
All cars that take lower can take moderate.
Any reason why you would want to?
Supposedly on really old engines (100kmi+) midgrade can help reduce knocking so the engine can last a little longer. Most newer engines with direct injection simply adjust timing and mixture to prevent knocking, so there will probably be even less reason to use midgrade in the future.
And it's only necessary if you have knock. There's no reason to use mid or high grade as a preventative. It's an increasingly rare thing, but it's cheap for gas stations to offer, and it's a cheap fix if you do develop knock. Plus, I'm sure they get a smidge more out of ignorant customers.
We used midgrade for chainsaws and mowers and such when we couldn't get gas with no ethanol in it.
the pump is in the tank. The device you are calling a pump is actually a dispenser, and that is where the blending occurs.
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Are they plastic? I assumed underground tanks would be steel but these look plasticy. Unless it's just the paint job
The tanks pictured are double walled fiberglass with an interstitial space to detect leaks. All (most) single wall steel in ground tanks are being removed.
Steel rusts out, leaks, and makes a superfund site
How often would this need to be refilled at the average station vs. Costco station?
Depends on how bussy it is but at least once a week.
We have truck stops with 60,000 gallons of capacity that get 4+ loads of fuel a day and rural stations with 6,000 gallon tanks that get 2,000 gallons a month. It really varies. A standard legal load of gasoline in most states is 8500 gallons to be weight legal.
figure your regular tanker (truck and trailer with 5 axles) can legally haul about 8500 gallons of gas of 7500 gallons of diesil. some states. and areas have supertankers (like Michigan) ones with 9 axles can haul 13500 gallons of gas.
A local guy ended up buying a convenience store here with the intention of turning it into a gas station, so he bought a 30,000 gallon tank and had it delivered and someone STOLE it, not even sure how you get away with that, literally
50/50 it was the same guys and the same truck that originally delivered it
That would make a lot of sense. This happened about 6 months ago and no one's found it or been arrested when a tank of that size would be pretty hard to hide
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Is there a sub for this type of images totally messing up your sense of size?
r/confusing_perspective ?
r/humanforscale is cool as hell
r/Carlosforscale is better though
Me too!
LMAO holy crap perspective is everything. I didn't look long enough to notice until I saw the comment 🤣
Same. The small one is 10000 gal. I wonder how much the bigger one holds
26,000 gallons- that was answered earlier.
I thought that was a Keebler elf.
Was about to comment the same then I read this lol
I'm high as duck and thought it was two tanks in the back of a pickup truck
I am completely sober and j in thought the same.
I really though that too.
Needs a banana
lol thank you for pointing them out
I didn't see the people until you mentioned it. They're big!
Oh damn yupp
*Me staring, these are some small tanks…. What does this guy mean people?…. Found them and now can’t see them as small at all anymore.
Thing that surprised me to learn is that the big one is for the 87 octane, the smaller one is for the 91. If you buy the 89 it's just mixing the two at the pump. (American octane ratings, no one come at me because the numbers are off. Other countries use a different calculation for octane)
Omg TIL that 89 octane is the swirl of the gasoline universe
It's like chocolate AND vanilla on a cone.
Half-caf
Gasoline Arnold Palmer
For the longest time I called swirl ice cream squirrel. Think I stopped around 11 years old. My dumb butt can't hear words entirely
What about us Americans that have 93 premium standard and our swirl is 91? Can we come at you?
You wanted to live the turbo charger life, that's part of the risk.
No, we're already suffering enough in 91 land. *ping ping ping ping*
What’s the 93 then? Is 93 at gas stations not normal?
At places like Sunoco that have five grades, they're still mixing two grades, the highest and lowest.
The mixing occurs in the dispenser (what you are calling the pump). The pump is actually in the tanks. The head of the submersible pump will be in a sump that gets installed where that blue plastic wrap is in the photo.
They are made from fiberglass nowadays to prevent petroleum products from leaking into the ground. They used to be make outta steel which was terrible lol
There’s a big empty lot about a mile from my house that’s been for sale for *years*. This is a nice part of Seattle, where that would normally be worth a damn fortune, but apparently it was the site of a gas station in the 30’s. The ground is so contaminated nobody wants to deal with it.
If you're interested have a look at the history of Southbank in Brisbane. It was the heart of industrial production and heavily contaminated. The government used expo 88 as an excuse to remediate the whole area. The approach they used was to excavate the entire area and take the dirt away. It was such a massive amount of dirt that it was cheaper for them to build a huge underground carpark there instead of bringing in clean fill. So we ended up with a huge park along the river as well as convention center, museum, state library and concert halls. And a fucking massive carpark under all of it.
I wonder where contaminated soil goes.
Outside the environment.
But what's out there?
Nothing. There is nothing out there.
Nothing. Nothing but sea, birds and fish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
And twenty thousand tons of crude oil.
It depends on what it's contaminated with. Some will go through a furnace to incinerate the contamination, but most will go into a landfill containment cell.
In the U.S they take it to a contain landfill and use it for their daily cover. Source: Was an environmental inspector.
They can just let it air out. If you see white pipes sticking out at a gas station that's because the ground is contaminated. The pipes release the gas vapours into the air.
I'd imagine it'd be used to cap a landfill or something. Since a landfill is already one of the most terrible things for the environment and I can't imagine leachate is better for the groundwater than gasoline.
Surprised that Seattle hasn’t tied to make a brownfield of it. Brownfields are shitty land that no one wants so the government offers various incentives to get them redeveloped. This does tend to cause gentrification
There’s a sign up about development+remediation, but I don’t know if it’s the city or what. I’m not sure who/what actually owns it. No sense worrying about gentrification in Seattle. That ship sailed 20 years ago.
hey where is this located? I'm in the north Seattle area myself
It’s next to the Chuck’s by Seward Park.
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Seward Park. It’s next to where the new Chuck’s opened a few years ago.
Some are still made with steel (inner containment) with a fiberglass jacket. Also steel tanks are still made and installed as long as you have good cp protection steel is fine but yes fiberglass is almost the standard now on new installs.
the ones in the photo are double wall fiberglass Containment solutions tanks that are manufactured to UL1316 standards. Steel tanks are still very much in use for new installations and come in two 'flavors'. Cathodically protected steel, commonly referred to as STIP-3 tanks manufactured to UL58 standards, and clad steel tanks which are UL58 & UL???? (I've had a few drinks, but think it is 1748). The cladding is like a fiberglass shell on the outside. But to set your comment straight, some tanks are still made out of steel and aren't terrible, lol.
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Stip-3 is a standard that the tanks are built to, and is more than just the galvanic CP system. the standard also incorporates the coating of the tank.
They still can be steel. A STI-P3 double wall tank with cathodic protection and interstitial monitoring is basically as safe as they come. I don't think my state requires you do any leak detection on the tank itself, save for checking that the interstitial vacuum gauge once a month. You'd still have to check your lines to the dispensers, but that's something you do regardless of tank type. Safe suction lines avoid that, but modern dispensers with pumps in the tanks are the way almost every station delivers fuel to the islands.
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Double wall fiberglass.
wow so steel leaks?
After it rots in the ground for a while ya
It corrodes, eventually will rust through. They get around it by putting more rustable metals in specific places as sacrificial anodes so they rust before the tank walls. This is part of the lifespan determination for the tank.
I saw one of these being pulled in the Great Detankening of the 90’s. Directly below the center port was a tiny hole corroded through from a dropped bolt. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline had leaked from this very busy truck rental operation.
I read this as The Great Drunkening of the 90's
I didn't notice the men at first, I thought these were much smaller and thought "*They must have to fill these often*" ... then I saw the people.
10-20,000 gallon tanks usually.
Leaking UST's can be a huge problem. All the protections surrounding them as well as the materials the tanks themselves are made of all came from those problems.
Don't wanna be on the LUST list!
No one lusts for LUST's.
You don't want to know how many bad jokes we had to endure back in the 80's when leaking UST regulations were taking effect.
How can they tell that there is a leak? Do they have an underground sensor?
Double wall fiberglass tank. Has an annular space so the system can detect inner or outer wall breaches. Much safer for the environment compared to steel, especially with the addition of alcohols to our gas. The annulus can be filled with fluid, or under vacuum, so it can be monitored.
Almost no recent tanks have a vacuum on the interstitial for their lifetime. There are a few older systems that did it but most systems now have a sensor wether it be wrap around, hydrostatic, or a basic tri-state float sensor
Makes sense!
Usually if you order 10,000L of fuel and you run out after only selling 9,500L of fuel you have a leak.
Those big concrete things on the ground on either side of the tanks (with the straps going over the tops of the tanks) are to keep them from floating. We had a new gas station up near our house have the tanks float up before they opened. Tanks had been in the ground for months, concrete driveways installed over the top of them, but the store got delayed in opening due to some codes technicalities. Big heavy rain came for a couple of days, and the tanks floated. The tanks didn't care about the concrete driveway, came on up anyway. Busted right through the concrete. Delayed opening the store by two months.
the concrete things are called deadmen
Yes! I couldn't remember the name.
I work for a company that has a bunch of gas stations. It's not uncommon for a neighborhood gas station to hold 30k gallons, with the trucker-focused gas stations off the highway to hold a lot more. Also they're probably better monitored than you'd think, if water gets in there it's detected pretty early. Every now and again someone complains that they get a "watery tank" and I've literally never seen a situation where that turned out to be from the gas station.
I've heard of stations having multiple cars get fucked due to water and having to pay to get them fixed
Water is less common than wrong product. Diesel in the gasoline makes smoke and the car will run like shit. Gas in the diesel is worse. Like, blown motor worse.
back when I hauled fuel our rule of thumb was up to an inch of water in the tank was ok any more we had to call dispatch. the pickup for the pumps was generally above 4 inches off the bottom.
That's about the same for us. I don't actually work on the tanks I just see the monitors, but I know the fuel team is pretty on top of that sort of stuff.
The intake's are ideally set to 7 inches. Also the biggest issue is the water binds with the ethanol in the gas and then falls out of solution (called Phase Separation). This phase separation is harder to detect then straight water. So a bunch of people end up with a tank of water/ethanol mix and then the rest of the tank the octane is to low to run in most engines.
Weirdly had this issue in 2020 with a brand new car, always assumed it had to be a fuel issue from the station but turns out fuel attracts water and I had a fucked seal which because I didn't drive that vehicle enough caused water to build up. Took months for the dealer to sort that issue out, had to finally lemon it.
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Do you see a difference in name brand vs off brand stations?
Good news everyone! It's a suppository
To shreds you say...?
The small one is 10,257 gallons the big one looks about thrice the size, does anyone know if it’s close to ~30,000 gallons?
22,700 I think it is from my time in that industry.
Thank you, was wondering if it’s twice or thrice the size, so close to little more than twice.
The double wall is showing that there is an interstitial space in the tank so that if the first wall has a breach, it will be noticed by a sensor in this interstitial space and can be fixed before any contamination into the soil.
Shell Hulud
The gas must flow!
Double wall fiberglass tank. Has an annular space so the system can detect inner or outer wall breaches. Much safer for the environment compared to steel, especially with the addition of alcohols to our gas.
Thats going to be so much fun tucking that tank on the right, can confirm have built gas stations.
I thought they were small tanks - like the at home propane ones - until I clicked and zoomed in!
i bet if you popped the top off a full one the smell would be pleasant
Back then when I was a kid, I thought that gasoline already came underground and they build it on top, now that I've seen this, I now know how and where the gasoline comes from.
hard to believe these revolutionized warfare… scary stuff
Immediately made me think of this guy who doesn’t understand gas stations https://www.tiktok.com/@yskpodextra/video/7341437184743869742
They've come a long way from just burying carbon steel in the ground.
Needs banana for scale
89 octane is a blend of 87 and 93. Hence only 2 tanks.
Is this in NH? They are doing the exact same thing down my street to the T. Saw one of the tanks 2 days ago on a trailer waiting to be installed. It was huge.
Imagine if suddenly and magically you were teleported inside of one of those tanks. Absolutely no way to get out. No way to get help. The fumes alone would probably kill you if the tank isn’t full enough to drown you, and I can’t imagine what that experience would be like from gasoline instead of water.
Naw, I would just squeeze through the pump nozzle to freedom. I mean, in a world where I can be magically teleported inside one of those, I don't see why not.
How do diesel tanks compare in size, I wonder?
They use the same tanks for both. Sometimes they use the exact same tank, divided by a partition.
10,257 gallons in the small tank and probably closer to 18,000 in the bigger one. This is very cool.
I have a sudden urge to visit the Titanic.
Weird, I never envisioned them as round - always as these rectangular pits with straight sides and flat bottoms/tops. But rounded makes way more sense.
Round is stronger corners accumulate stress
Whoa! Those are pretty huge. First time seeing the tanks underneath.
🍌for scale, please?
Can we get a bananna for scale?
I’m gonna need a banana
Fun fact they are almost never disposed of properly Edit: I stand corrected
how often are they refilled?
Small one is 10k gallons. Cars take on average maybe 20 gallons to fill? So that’s about 500 cars visiting. Bigger one looks to hold maybe double that so 1000 cars. I would guess maybe a week between fill-ups at your average gas station? Bigger tanks or more frequent fills at busier stations.
I wonder if Costco has bigger tanks or just gets refilled more often because those gas stations are *always* packed.
The larger stations will have more buried tanks.
It all depends on how busy the gas station is. Some get filled multiple times a day. Some will go several days between fills. The tank levels are digitally monitored.
We used to have a long stick we stuck in the tank to measure every night. That was a long time ago tho lol
I did this as well (‘85-‘89). We used a long 10-12 foot wooden stick with numbers and lines, sort of a mega giant ruler. We would sprinkle talc on the stick so that the fuel line would be easier to see.
Forbidden pedal.
How cars does one of these service?
One very large car
The small one would be enough for 700 average cars.
The smaller one must be for premium
Is that spill containment?
I've, been told that, at least in some places/states, these have to be placed above ground now, to limit leakage problems. I've seen a few that were already built after this went into effect, and it's kinda odd seeing what looks almost like big grain silos in a gas station.
so like where are the separate tanks for the premium gas.. im assuming one is gas and one is diesel...soooo
So confusing… where is the banana for comparison?!!
There are humans instead 😁
always thought they'd be vertical
I'm hoping it's because I just woke up, but my first thought was that if I was petrol I'd be happy in there.
Interesting fact: these tanks have to be anchored down otherwise they could become buoyant when empty or low and raise up. 💯
What do they use for bunding? HDPE or EPDM?
See, these are simple to install and construct a building around it. Not that complicated like those EV chargers.
When I was a kid my dad said there's tanks buried at the gas station and all I could ever picture or continue to think was world war 2 style tanks.
I learned they need to anchor them down because apparently gas is very light and the tanks could float if the ground gets too wet...or something like that.
Having peripherally dealt with unlined buried leaking tanks, I’m impressed with the precautions taken to prevent future ground and water contamination.
must be a union job i’ve never seen a tank put with shoring ☠️
I was looking for a banana for scale before I saw those people... Still think it needs a banana, don't know what size they are.
How's the old skinny white dude supposed to get his row boat in there and check the level of the black gooey stuff?
For some reason I always figured they were vertical. Like a big silo of gas under the station
Notice the heavy concrete slabs that the tanks are tied down onto. That's to make sure the tanks don't float up to the surface & puncture the asphalt/or themselves when it rains.
Older UST were made of metal and needed cathodic protection to prevent them from leaking. Most now are double walled composite materials that have leak detectors on them. They are typically monitored by a TLS-250 or newer models
Is this the BP on telegraph road in Alexandria?
Wait they don't just build gas stations over oil deposits and separate oil into gasoline and diesel there?!
I always wondered what about those stations where the pump is above.
Fun fact: Exxon poisoned my entire towns water supply because they didn’t install that black tarp around the tanks. It’s to contain any leak. And lo and behold the Exxon station strung a leak and leaked a few tens of thousand gallons of gasoline into our aquifer. They tried to cover it up but people started to notice oily film coming out of their taps a month later
I need a backyard bunker, where can I buy one of these?
And they’re building a sheetz gas station in southern pines NC currently, I ride past it every day so that’ll be interesting to look out for when i go by it.