Building Inspection, Diagnosis & Repair Info

Photograph of an outdoor heating oil tank Heating Oil Tank & Piping Sludge Prevention or Cures

Sludge & crud or contaminants in heating oil storage tanks: installing a Scully Snorkel® to avoid picking up oil tank sludge & water and other oil piping changes, some simple & inexpensive, can often solve a problem with oil storage tank sludge, debris, water & clogging that otherwise leads to loss of heat.

This article series explains the causes and cures for heating system problems due to sludge in home heating oil tanks, including problems of clogged oil piping, clogged oil filters, oil burner malfunctions, and loss of heat due to sludge in the oil tank.

We explain why sludge is a problem in home heating oil & why it leads to loss of heat.

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Scully Snorkel or Piping Changes Leave Oil Tank Sludge Harmless at the Oil Tank Bottom

Scully Snorkel oil tank gauge & fuel pick-up - Scully Signal Company


Install a Scully Snorkel at the oil tank. Scully Signal Co. produces a line of MagneLink™ Snorkel® Gauges - oil tank level indicators that include a floating oil-burner feed line fuel pickup.

The "Scully Snorkel" as it's popularly called among oil heat folks, incorporates a floating heating oil pick-up that uses a float to pick up oil from one inch below the surface of oil in the heating oil storage tank. [16]

By picking up heating oil just below the surface in the oil tank we avoid picking up sludge or water that - if present - will be at the bottom of the oil tank.

Incidentally, the Scully Snorkel gauge and oil pickup assembly can communicate with Scully's IntelliTank™ electronic automatic fuel recorder system.

Illustration of a Scully Snorkel gauge and heating oil pickup, courtesy Scully Signal Co. (permission req. 2013.) More details are about this and other oil tank gauges are

at OIL TANK GAUGES

Change oil tank piping pick-up taken off of the bottom of the oil storage tank to enter the tank from a fitting at the tank top. Close off the piping at the oil tank bottom.

Oil tank piping sketch of tank top pickup arrangement (C) Daniel Friedman

Some heating oil piping techs just close the service valve at the tank bottom and remove the piping.

I'd also install a cap on the valve outlet to assure that the valve can't just feed oil to the building floor.

Oil tank piping from tank top - 2-line (C) Daniel Friedman

A new oil supply line (or pair of lines if it's a two-pipe system) are routed from the top of the oil tank.

Inside the oil tank the pick-up line is not dropped all the way to the tank bottom. rather the line is kept 4-6" off of the tank bottom to avoid picking up water or sludge.

Watch out: when re-routing oil tank piping from tank bottom to connect through oil tank top, check the total lift required against the capacity of the oil burner fuel unit.


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Citations & Reviewers

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  • [2] Domestic and Commercial Oil Burners, Charles H. Burkhardt, McGraw Hill Book Company, New York 3rd Ed 1969.
  • [10] "Warm Air Heating Systems". Instructional Technologies Institute, Inc., 145 "D" Grassy Plain St., Bethel, CT 06801 800/227-1663 [home inspection training material] 1987
  • [10] Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning Volume I, Heating Fundamentals,
    • Boilers, Boiler Conversions, James E. Brumbaugh, ISBN 0-672-23389-4 (v. 1) Volume II, Oil, Gas, and Coal Burners, Controls, Ducts, Piping, Valves, James E. Brumbaugh, ISBN 0-672-23390-7 (v. 2) Volume III, Radiant Heating, Water Heaters, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, Heat Pumps, Air Cleaners, James E. Brumbaugh, ISBN 0-672-23383-5 (v. 3) or ISBN 0-672-23380-0 (set) Special Sales Director, Macmillan Publishing Co., 866 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022. Macmillan Publishing Co., NY
  • [13] Installation Guide #200, The Hydronics Institute, 35 Russo Place, Berkeley Heights, NJ 07922
  • [14] The ABC's of Retention Head Oil Burners, National Association of Oil Heat Service Managers, TM 115, National Old Timers' Association of the Energy Industry, PO Box 168, Mineola, NY 11501. (Excellent tips on spotting problems on oil-fired heating equipment. Booklet.
  • [15] AGA, Redfyre, or Rayburn directly at AGA, Station Road, Ketley, Telford, Shropshire, TF1 5AQ, UK, Tel: 08457 626 147, or 08458 152 020, Website: rayburn-web.co.uk
  • [16] "Scully Oil Delivery Systems", Scully Signal Company, 70 Industrial Way, Wilmington MA 01887, Tel: 800-272-8559, email: sales@scully.com, website: scully.com, retrieved 3/14/13, copy on file as Scully_Delivery Systems Catalogue.pdf.
  • [17] William K. Rashbaum, "Heating Oil Companies Face Inquiry on Purity of Fuel", The New York Times, 21 March 2013 p. A22.
  • In addition to citations & references found in this article, see the research citations given at the end of the related articles found at our suggested

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