My friend put diesel in his water tank

[Nick_H]

A friend of mine foolishly put about a gallon of diesel in his water tank before he realised. Can anyone suggest how I, sorry I mean my friend, should clean out the tank to stop the water smelling of diesel every time I, I mean he, fills it up?

 

[mainshiptom]

very silly friend ? you should find better friends.

Did you put water in the diesel to make up for it?

Tom

 

[hlb]

Oh shi? Tell your friend, that getting water out of diesel is easy, cos it does not effect the taste as far as I know. But diesel out of water, much harder. I'd get a new friend!!

I'd ask local mechanic man who has seen problem before, and hopefully do not run it through pipes before it is cleaned out.

 

[neale]

First thing you, or rather your friend, should do is to make sure that the fresh water system is not used. Your friend does not want to distribute the diesel any further than it already is. You need to isolate the tank and have it emptied. It will then need to be flushed and cleaned but I don't know what with. Maybe Forum member Piers can help. He, or rather a friend of his, done exactly the same thing a few years ago.

Neale

 

[tcm]

You or you friend would be wise to get a "gusher pump" for exactly this eventuality or any other simialr accidents. Your friend needs to buy a handbilge pump and mount it on a 3ft piece of wood, attach reinforced flexy pipe each end and then he can pump any liquid from anywhere to anywhere else by standing on the wood with bilge pump between legs and pumping away. Of course, best is to do this the very moment you have discovered the prob, or asap.

Technically, the diesel wil float on the water but to start it will kerflump down into the tank and make a scummy diesel mark around the tank at that level - so skimming off this top layer first is best to reduce the effect of the diesel-scum-line gently falling all the way down the inside of the tank . There is almost certainly be an inspection hatch and direct pump out of there and using paper towels to totally dry/clean the tank if at all poss.

Again, if poss, you need to clean (or even replace) the hose that goes from the deck filler to the tank. I think i wd go for replacing it - it is not expensive or particularly high performance.

Poster "headmistress" will have better ideas than me about any cleaning fluid to use, tho a common one in the uk is Milton. I think you will need hefty dosages to start.

Key thing imho is not to use the tap/water pump s for as long as poss - empty, clean and flush your er friends tank without taking any water thru the pump will be better.

 

[Lakesailor]

When you go on board your friend's boat. Take a flask.

 

[DavidJ]

Because diesel floats just fill the tank with water by putting the hose right into the base of the tank and run gently, allowing it to overflow for a few hours.
This is just theory, you understand, non of my friends have actually tried it.

 

[tcm]

pah, a bit of diesel never hurt anyone! Er actually that isn't true but anyway.

Looking on the bright side, if the tanks don't get clean the pipes won't go rusty AND one could experiment with attempting to make tea flambé. Plus no need for a shave either just have a shower and light a match and ensuing flame will remove all body hair.

 

[KevB]

Personally id try sticking a hose in the tank and just let it run for a while then using the least used tap (or transom shower) empty half the water out then squirt washing up liquid into the tank, fill it back up with water and go for a bumpy ride to mix it all up. back at the dockside empty the tank using the transom shower, stick hose back in tank and leave running ( overflowing for an hour) then turn on all tapes and thouroughly flush through. If any tapes have been used whilst diesel was in the tank they should be used to empty the tank whilst the fairly liquid was in it.

 

[AndrewD]

Personally I'd buy a new tank, you will never ever get rid of the smell. Hopefully it didn't get as far as the pipework and the boat hasn't experience too much motion since the incident?

 

[tcm]

not sure how easy the tank is to get out of many biggish powerboats, or even no so biggish p[owerboats - tanks go in before deck bolted.

 

[petem]

I'm with TCM, flush, drain then a gallon of milton (you use this stuff in microwaves and fridges as it does not leave a taste). If that fails then steam clean?

 

[twisterkai]

Flush & steam clean repeating until clean, otherwise diesel is an extremely effective laxative!!!!!

 

[jfm]

Piers did this a few years ago, on Play D'Eau mark1, afaik. There was a thread about it. Dave Street (an ace boat fixer at Berthon in Lymington) flush it all out and also added some wonder tablets to make the water tanks perfect again. So maybe ask Dave - Berthon are not cheap but Dave is a seriously good shipwright and very nice helpful guy

 

[tcm]

the friend

as punishment for your friend , I decided to kill him and his entire family, after which I dumped their bodies at sea and have arranged for official statistics to be covertly changed to delete any trace of their existence. Hope this is okay.

 

[DPH]

Due to a combination of cockups I, sorry, my friend once ended up with about a teaspoon of diesel in the water tank. It was a whole season of heavy use making the effort to always empty the tank and filling up every week before you couldn't smell/taste it.

 

[hlb]

Suppose the other way, is to add a few bottles of ribena cordial to the tank and hide the taste!

 

[[2068]]

Re: the friend

sounds entirely reasonable to me. A friend was considering similar action to eliminate all traces of SWMBO after 50L unleaded went into a very diesel Golf.

 

[Its_Only_Money]

[ QUOTE ]
Due to a combination of cockups I, sorry, my friend once ended up with about a teaspoon of diesel in the water tank. It was a whole season of heavy use making the effort to always empty the tank and filling up every week before you couldn't smell/taste it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I'd have given up, converted the water tank to an extra diesel tank and found a new place for a new water tank!!

As an general aside my boat carries 200L of petrol and 70L of water - is there a std boat designers ratio for these things??? I mean if I stayed out of reach of a water supply long enough to use 70L I'd have run out of petrol days before???? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif Now if it was a 70L aux petrol tank it might be more useful...... /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[tcm]

your ratio of 1:3 seems to go up to about 1:6 so quite normal for say 1000litres water and towards 6000litres fuel. Some even have water makers which seems a bit mad too, as the fuel would only last bout 20hours running aklthough water a few days so i suppose you would have to want to stay at anchor for a week or more...