Home Heating Oil and Equipment Maintenance
How to Measure Oil in Your Heating Oil Tank
If you’re one of the millions of homeowners out there who rely on fuel oil to heat your home and keep everyone warm during the winter season, one of your most important responsibilities is to learn everything there is to learn about your home heating oil tank. After all, it’s one of those components of your heating equipment that needs constant and regular monitoring and maintenance. Without the attention it deserves, the tank can easily cause a lot of problems for you, including leaks, rusting, and others. If you thought of this earlier, you might have asked a lot of questions to the local company that installed it. But then again, the fact that you’re the average homeowner only means one thing: you didn’t realize it was that important to be familiar with your home heating oil tank.
Anyway, aside from monitoring if there is a tendency for your heating oil tank to leak, another thing you must be aware of is measuring its volume. Based on the shape of your tank, you must know how much oil it stores, the idea of which is to figure out when’s the right time to purchase oil before you risk running out of it in the middle of the cold months.
First, if you happen to have a rectangular tank, it means you have to measure the length, depth, and width of the unit using tape measure or a similar measuring tool. If it is possible, you should take the measurements inside the tank. If not, you simply will have to measure from the outside and then subtract the width of the tank walls. Once you get this number, multiply the length, depth, and width measurements together to come up with the cubic volume in inches. Now using the measurement of a gallon in cubic inches, you now simply have to divide the cubic volume in inches by 231.
As for cylindrical types of tank meanwhile, you must begin measurements by first figuring out the height and radius of the tank. Once you have both figures, you then will square the radius by multiplying the number by itself. The answer must be multiplied by 3.1416 or pi. Once you get this answer, multiply it with the height of the tank so as to get the cubic volume in inches, and again divide it by 231 to get a conversion in gallons.
Even though you don’t feel like it’s a necessity to learn how to measure the volume of your heating oil tank, in reality, it really is a valuable skill to have, especially if you don’t practice buying oil to fill up the tank. Likewise, it also helps you in getting a faster, convenient, and more efficient way of heating oil delivery to your home. In fact, heating oil delivery companies will appreciate it if you save half the time in the delivery process.