How to Get Water Out of a Heating Oil Tank

Most of us work hard to keep our fuel and power bills under control. We shop around to find the best tariffs and search for the best home heating oil prices before we buy. Doing so is an effective way to save money and make your limited funds go further.

By taking this approach, most families find that they can afford to keep their homes warm. However, every now and again disaster strikes. Perhaps your boiler breaks down, or the heating oil in your tank becomes contaminated. If something like that happens, you can end up with a huge bill that is hard to cover.

Fortunately, by thinking outside of the box you can often find another solution and have to avoid this type of big bill. For example, if the heating oil in your tank becomes contaminated with water you do not necessarily have to pay to have it pumped out and disposed of. Of course, this approach is an option, but it is no longer the only way to deal with that issue, and certainly not the cheapest.

Water sinks to the bottom

Because water is heavier than oil, it sinks to the bottom of the tank. The oil ends up floating on top of the water. This is both a good and a bad thing. Read on and you will see why I say that.

Shorten the feed hose

It is good because you can have the hose that dips into the heating oil cut short so that it is clear of the water. Then all you need to do is to drain the oil and water that is already in the pipes out and use your boiler as normal. This approach works, but you have to be careful. If you do not solve the underlying problem and prevent more water from entering the tank the water level will rise and you will need to shorten the pipe again.

Pump or siphon it out

I mentioned above the water sinking to the bottom was both and bad. The reason it is bad is that it is hard for you to reach the water and pump it out because the pump hose will not naturally fall to the bottom of the tank. However, the person in this video has found a very clever way of solving this potential issue. This just leaves you with having to find a safe and legal way, of disposing of the contaminated water.

If you take this approach you will likely end up having to pump out at least a few litres of oil as well. Unfortunately, you may still end up having to leave a little water in the tank. Therefore, you may still have to shorten the feed hose slightly.

Buy a specialist clean-up kit

It is also now possible to do the job using something called a tank sponge, or a water soaker kit.

None of the above methods is completely free, but they are all a lot cheaper than throwing away hundreds of litres of heating oil. If you have a good heating oil supplier, they will help you to solve this issue and offer practical support.