Advice on replacing the oil tank

[UsedToBeAPaxmanFan]

Our ancient oil tank is at the end of its life. It's metal, 1000 litres and in our back garden.

Should we replace it with another metal tank if go for plastic? And should we go for a bigger tank? It would need to be quite slim as it has to get into the garden through a standard door. I know plastic tanks have to be double skinned and do are usually bigger. Do metal tanks now have to be double skinned as well?

I think I read somewhere that tanks in back gardens could have a filler pipe in the front. Has anyone done this or got this arrangement and does it work? At the moment, dh and I have to take turns working from home on days the oil tanker might turn up in order to let them access the back garden.

Any advice appreciated.

Oh gosh. We need to think about this too. If I find anything else out elsewhere I will let you know.

I think only tanks above a certain size have to be bunded. The following website may help (nothing to do with me I just googled your question about bunding because I am also researching this)

www.smithsofthedean.co.uk/steel-tanks/steel-tanks.html

My research shows metal = rust, Plastic = more easily ruptured.

The most important thing for me is lockability. I have an almost new double bunded plastic tank, which can't be locked !!! A fortnight ago the local scroats drove down and emptied all the oil tanks in the hamlet whilst everyone was at work.

I am not sure how you would lay the piping to front fill. It sounds as if you have no side access so would it need to go under your house? If so I would suspect the answer to that is no. Not only would it be almost impossible to lay, but if it leaked how on earth would you identify the leak point??

Just to update, we have now replaced our oil tank. Due to its position, we ended up with another metal one as the space its in is very narrow and the plastic ones weren't narrow enough.

We decided against front filling, as there is a very narrow (few centimetres) of space down the side of our garage, but the fitter wouldn't have been able to attach the pipe to the garage wall without taking down NDN's fence. We do have side access on the other side of the house but that doesn't help as it's nowhere near the tank.

The new metal one looks as smart as an oil tank can and is unobtrusive. The fitter built a fireproof structure around 2 sides of it which had to be done to comply with new regs. He also built a divert for the nearest drain so if there's a leak it can't contaminate the drain ststem.

It's guaranteed for10 years. Fitting took one day, the fitter brought a spare tank with him and transferred all our oil from old tank into temporary tank then into new tank. The new tank, the additional work and the fitting came to just over £1000.