New tank owners' guide...

[Yellowmask]

Just bought my first scuba tank (12L steel). I'm going to be a real newbie and ask... I'm planning to keep it in the garage, stored upright. Is this okay in terms of temperature, and safety? I've always been taught "put the cylinder on its side", but I've read on this board that for long-term storage it should be stored upright.

I should maybe mention I live in northern Britain, so whilst I've never put a thermometer in the garage, the temperature range is probably between 30 degrees C in summer and -10 degrees C in winter.

Also, do you need to put any sort of a compressed air sign on the garage? I have one for the car.

Has anyone had any problems storing cylinders in the garage of a rented house? I'm planning to notify my landlord on the grounds that he is in and out of the garage a lot and should know about it. (I can store it at a friend's house if it becomes an issue.)

Last question. Someone recently asked me "what happens if it falls over?" The only answer I could think of was "it would go clang quite loudly". Joking aside, I know that the main risk involves damage to the valve that would allow the air to escape, which is why you're not supposed to leave them standing up, but if the cylinder simply fell on its side on the floor, would it be badly damaged?

 

[Crush]

I can only answer a small fraction of your questions.

As for storage temperatures, very cold (below zero) and very hot (100C) are not problems - there have been many discussions on SB about storage temps.

You should store your tanks at full operating pressure. If anything were to fail, it would be the burst disk.

 

[IceCube]

Don't store steel tanks wet with the boots on.

When I return from a dive, I pull the boots off and wipe down the tank as best I can. I leave the boot off for a day to dry off. Once dry, I put them back on and store up-right.

The water stuck in the boots can lead to corrosion.

 

[JanK]

I am far from an expert on these things, not even owning my own tanks, but I recall reading a quite lengthy article on the storage of tanks where they did all sorts of experiements. IIRC the article was either on this board or on thedecostop.com.

But the two things that I do remember are: don't store them lying down and store them with minimal pressure. Any condensation will form a puddle where corrosion will take place. But the area affected by the puddle is much larger if a tank is lying on its side. I also seem to remember that the tanks are thicker on the bottom, so there's relatively less material eaten away.

As for the pressure: if you store the tanks with full pressure, you have a much higher partial pressure of oxygen, which accelerates all corrosion processes, so to prevent that, you need to store tanks at low pressure. My understanding is a few bar, just to keep the positive pressure and prevent moist air from entering the tank.

 

[spectrum]

Yellowmask

With respect to signage I'll need to leave that to those with local knowledge. Notification of the landlord is not a bad thing to do just in case.

Cylinders should be stored upright. If there happens to be moisture in there that could cause rust you are better of with a few pits in the base which is thicker and easier to inspect & clean. The lay it down practice is good for uncontrolled locations where others are present. A lot of it actually stems from preventing damage to tile floors in pool facilities. A tipped cylinder can blemish a tile job in a hurry.

You do want to avoid extreme swings in temperature as this can cause the same moisture to vaporize and re-condense repeatedly and promote rusting. Any temperature is OK but the steadier the better.

You do want to be rinsing the boots out after every day of ocean diving. Some will remove the boot as mentioned but that is a meticulous individual. If you rinse well not much should build-up.

If you have DIN connections you will want to clean the threads periodically (tooth brush) as they are exposed to the salt and it can build up. This is especially true if like me you rinse with regulators mounted and pressurized.

The driver behind storage pressure is failure in a fire. If stored full then the burst disc will do it's job and cause a safe release, The other option is less than 500 PSI as the destructive energy will be limited. If they are in the middle it could get ugly.

If the cylinder is tipped over and lands on it's side no harm to the side wall will be done. The risk is that the valve strikes something breaking the fall and shears. That is ugly.

Enjoy the new cylinder. It's great to know you can head out on a moments notice.

Pete

 

[burna]

Hey Yellowmask,

Check out this forum, I'm sure they could help you out with some local knowledge.
YD Scuba Diving Forums



BTW. Just came back from York area. Great diving weather over there ATM.

 

[Druid]

Just bought my first scuba tank (12L steel). I'm going to be a real newbie and ask... I'm planning to keep it in the garage, stored upright. Is this okay in terms of temperature, and safety? I've always been taught "put the cylinder on its side", but I've read on this board that for long-term storage it should be stored upright.

I should maybe mention I live in northern Britain, so whilst I've never put a thermometer in the garage, the temperature range is probably between 30 degrees C in summer and -10 degrees C in winter.

I'm in Durham, and my cylinders are in the garage too, stored upright because it takes less room. I try not to store them full, but it doesn't always work out that way and at times I've stored a full cylinder of 32% for several months. My oldest cylinders are 13 years old and passed their test with no problems earlier this year.

Also, do you need to put any sort of a compressed air sign on the garage? I have one for the car.

Has anyone had any problems storing cylinders in the garage of a rented house? I'm planning to notify my landlord on the grounds that he is in and out of the garage a lot and should know about it. (I can store it at a friend's house if it becomes an issue.)

You don't need compressed air signs for the garage or the car, unless you are transporting or storing cylinders in as part of your job. It would be a good idea to tell your landlord I suppose, although legally he is not supposed to have access to the property without giving you notice.

Last question. Someone recently asked me "what happens if it falls over?" The only answer I could think of was "it would go clang quite loudly". Joking aside, I know that the main risk involves damage to the valve that would allow the air to escape, which is why you're not supposed to leave them standing up, but if the cylinder simply fell on its side on the floor, would it be badly damaged?

If it just falls over it would not be badly damaged. Well, none of mine have anyway. What's going to make it fall over in a locked garage anyway?

 

[Druid]

A couple more points:

Ignore the references to burst discs, they're not used in the UK.

I rinse my cylinders after using them in salt water, but I don't bother to take the boots off to dry them. In 13 years only one of my cylinders (out of six) has rusted enough to cause concern. I check them once a year or so, usually in November/December when I know they're unlikely to be used for a couple of months.

 

[Bob DBF]

I always rig a place to tie off or bungee (the real heavy duty ones) the tank to something solid, like a wall. It isnt that tipping over will hurt the tank but if the valve hits something on the way down it could be damaged, especially a DIN without a plug.

I store them upright, dry, full or empty (200+ #) for a year or so depending on need, with steel going back to '76 and AL from '80 something all in hydro an viz at the moment. Although the the temps are not as extreme here, when living back east they were.

Bob
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You only need two tools in life – WD40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn’t move and should, use the WD40. If it shouldn’t move and does, use the Duct Tape

 

[hbhobby]

I was reading this post and it reminded me of a fire I was called to once where the occupant had several oxygen bottles in the house and witht he high temperature of the fire one of them exploded (sounded like a bomb had gone off with a VERY impressive cloud of fire) and then across the street we found a smaller (about the size of a pony bottle) bottle lodged in the wall of the house. made all of us firefighters stop and think about going into a fire where we know there are full oxygen bottles!!!