How do you convert inches of home heating fuel into gallons?

Question

I have 9 inches of heating fuel in a 550 gallon tank. Is there a conversion to find the number of gallons that would be?

Answer 1

Try going by percentages.

If you have a 550 gallon tank, and it's half full, then it's 225 gallons, half of that would be...

Keep breaking it down by halves untill you reach the level of fuel in your tank.

Answer 2

To convert the height of the oil into gallons you need to give us the dimensions of the tank...in the absence of that here is some math to develop a formula...

Use caution when doing rough estimates that use the nominal volume of a tank, in your case 550 gal, as often the actual capacity is only 80% of that due to allowances for overflow and other equipment such as fill lines etc.

In general the volume of anything is the Length X Height X Width. For circular tanks the Length x Width is replaced with the formula for the area of a circle...

Area of a circle = Pi x (radius)^2...so how to find the radius of a tank ...well measure the circumference of the tank by wrapping a piece of string around the tank then measure the string length in inches - this is your circumference. Now from math you know the circumference of a circle = 2 x Pi x r and solving this for r yields...

r = circumference/ (2x Pi) this is the radius in inches. Except that this is the radius all the way to the outside wall of your tank. So we should adjust this length by the wall thickness of your tank. For a small tank use 0.5 inches. So reduce your r by 0.5 inches. now you have everything needed to calculate volume of the tank by using heght.

Area of the circle of your tank = Pi x r^2

the volume in your tank is the area x the height of the oil. and since the only thing that varies in this equation is the height of the liquid in the tank you can make a chart that translates height in the tank to volume.

Volume = Area (fixed number) x h
If you measured circumference in inches and height in inches then your volume will also be in cubic inches. To translate inches to gallons is a simple conversion...

There are 12 inches in 1 ft and 1ft x 1ft x 1ft = 1 cubic foot. This is the same as 12in x 12in 12in = 1728 cubic inches so we can say that 1 cf = 1728ci. Then using the fact that there are 7.48gallons in every cubic foot we can say that there are 7.48 gallons in every 1728 cunic inches or...

1 gallon of liquid is equivalent to 231 cubic inches...divide this number (231) by the area of your tank and the resulting number is the number of inches of height per gallon...if you have 9 inches left divide 9 (or whatever the height is) by the height per gallon number to find the total gallons of left in your tank...You can then make marks on your tank showing 10 -20 gallon increments.

Presumably your tank is plastic and circular - a typical 550 gallon circular plastic tank has a diameter of the tank is about 4 feet and radius of 2 feet resulting in an area of 1809 square inches and so with 9 inches left in it would be about 70 gallons.

Answer 3

Nope..

Because the SIZE not the capacity of your tank determines the volume per inch.

If your tank was 6" high and 20' in diameter, one inch of draw would be a LOT of fuel.

Conversly if your tank was 6" square and 50 feet tall one inch of fuel would be about a quart.

Measure your tank and compute its surface area in square feet

then divide that number by 12 to get the volume of one cubic inch of fuel. Then just convert that to gallons (that conversion escapes me as I type but it is easy to look up - sorry).

good luck

.

Answer 4

My guess the same way that you do with bio diesel. You filter all the rubbish out. Boil off any water impurities. And treat it with methylated spirits and remove the glycerine.