March 28, 2005
Fun and Games with tanks - part two...
A few days ago, I wrote about trying to move our small tank and finding its legs cemented into the floor. That following day, I went armed with some heavy tools and got it out successfully. Here are some photos:
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If you look around the leg, you will see an area of different colored concrete — this is where the original floor was chiseled out, the legs placed and fresh concrete poured in. It went down more than four inches.
My original plan was to use a rotohammer to chip out the concrete and lift the legs from the holes. The legs were so deeply set into the floor, this proved impractical so Plan B was implemented. An abrasive cut-off wheel in an angle-grinder made relatively short work. It turned out that the legs themselves had been filled with concrete and a piece of rebar set into the middle.
I wound up having to use the cut-off wheel to score around the outside of each leg and then use a Sawzall with a metal cutting blade to cut through the cement and the rebar. Six legs = four cut-off wheels and five Sawzall blades…
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Finally, after about three hours, jacked it free of the floor, put some planks underneath and started pulling it out of the building.
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The tank is now fully out of the building. A big sigh of relief!
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Here it is with its larger neighbor at pasture in our field.
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Here is a view inside the tank. I do have stainless steel lids that completely cover it. The openness is really nice as we will be using this one for our Mead and Specialty drinks and the design of this tank will make it very easy to hoist a 55 Gallon drum of Honey or Berries up, over and into a pouring position. Plus, since this tank will be used for heavier, sticker raw materials, the openness makes it a lot easier to clean and sanitize. Posted by DaveH at March 28, 2005 08:10 PM | TrackBack