recovery tank 5 year inspection

[ejonesss]

i know that here in the usa you are supposed to have the tank inspected 5 years after manufacture date.

but i was wondering if the tank is never taken off the property and is just used as a storage tank do you still have to have it inspected?

i recycle metals and i get old window air conditioners that people throw out and up until recently i had no way to recover the charge and would have to rely on someone to remove the charge.

i have a friend that works on refrigeration and can take the charge and he has a recovery pump.

i was wondering if i get a used or sometimes new tank on ebay that has been in storage and is nearing the 5 year mark if i can use that to store the charge.

my intent would be to collect the charge in the tank and have my friend come down to transfer the charge from my tank to his tank on site if i can get away with not having it inspected so long as my tank is not taken off the property?

[chilliwilly]

You wiil stiil probably have to have it inspected for insurance purposes. They wiil check to see if the tank is fit for its intended use, ie is it corroded?, will it securely hold a refrigerant charge as good as a system that contains a charge?, is it dented and still able to contain a volume of charge that the decal specifies?

More often than not it is oxy bottles and fuel gas bottles that come under close scrutiny and regular testing. But with the F gas regulations and the EPA regarding the safe use of refrigerants, the book as been passed over to the refrigerant recovery, decant, and storage tanks. For different reasons other than safety.

[Brian_UK]

Slightly off-topic but this made me think back to when I did some work at one of our underground nuclear bunkers.

You know the sort of thing, huge sealed doors and everything self contained and filtered.

One of the systems was a massive bank of oxygen cylinders, must have been several hundred, to help maintain safe levels when the building was in use.

Due to the pressure directives which had come in they decided to vent off all of the oxygen so that the bottles no longer had any pressure and therefore didn't need testing.

Just hope that there is plenty of warning for WWIII because BOC won't have that much gas in stock at short notice.

[chilliwilly]

They had a shortage of acetelene back in July. They wouldn't supply any new customers at the Leeds depot.