I am almost done converting from an oil furnace to an air source heat pump.

I still have an underground 500 gallon oil tank that is darn near empty. With the recent price drop in diesel, I would LOVE to top that tank off with on-road taxed ULSD. Then when the price goes back up, I'm saving money.

Has anyone done this?

Thanks
-Matt

 

We use several old fuel oil barrels for gas but they are above ground tanks and cleaned well, a buried tank will be very hard to remove the last little bit of fuel oil and clean. If your daring you could remove all the old oil you can and fill, then use very good filters but I guarantee it will be dark looking fuel the first few tank fulls.

 

why pay taxes on fuel when you don't have to , buy home heating oil that's not taxed by uncle sam

 

better off using off rd fuel its died red[ farm tractors , construction equipment fuel]heating oil no. 2 diesel, why pay for rd tax if you don't have too, plan on driving your house on the interstate

 

same stuff but cost over a $1.oo more per gallon rd fuel pays rd tax

 

In theory that's a great idea. But there's some things to be done to make sure it's OK as far as contamination, algae, etc. The people who filled the fuel oil tank may have the skinny on that.

 

yes it can be done. get a suction pump that will reach down to the bottom of the tank, and suck it out, filtering what is in there to get as much crud out of the tank as you can.

then you can put the filtered fuel you took out back in and top it off.
set your pickup from the transfer pump 1-2 inches off the bottom of the tank, and send it through a water separator/filter before the pump.

not sure what algae conditions are in Washington, but here in New Jersey i still have about 100 gallons of 13 year old fuel left in my tank i use in the 88 in the winter.
once i get rid of the high sulfur fuel in the tank i will be filling it up with ULSD for use in all the diesel trucks.

 

Re-read his post, his plan is to stock up on cheap fuel for his trucks so that when it goes back up he will be money ahead.

 

I'm not interested in avoiding fuel tax. We who use the roads ought to be paying our fair share.

Thanks for the thoughts, guys.

 

Avoiding is fine. Evading, not so much.

 

Large empty tanks tend to build a fair share of moisture.

By the time you mess around and buy pumps and filters, do you really save much?
Especially considering this is a 1 shot deal?

 

Why is it a one shot deal, though? Doesn't have to be. It would be nice to have a big ole slug of fuel on hand too.

 

go for it, just use a 10 micron filter/separator before or after your transfer pump.
I've used a small 250 gallon fuel oil tank for years... for both the truck and tractor... if your afraid of algae, put in some biocide.
I'm using a cheap 1" water pump as my transfer pump.
a pressure relief valve is on my discharge side of the pump/filter, returning extra fuel back to the storage tank, when my nozzle is not open/filling the vehicle.

 

I think its a great idea. I wish I had the tank to do the same thing

 

lots of people are getting rid of oil and propane tanks. just look for a nice clean one.. and make it into your storage tank. caution if you convert the propane tank. ensure the tank is filled with water when you cut or weld to install fittings.