The modern farm needs a wide variety of resources to stay functional and profitable, from water to seeds and fertilisers, but one of the most vital resources for any farm is fuel for your agricultural vehicles. Even a small farm that uses a single tractor and combine harvester has prodigious fuel requirements, so it stands to reason that most farms keep fuel tanks on-site to minimise the amount of trips they have to make to fuel depots.

However, not all fuel tanks are created equally, and whether your fuel tank is large or small, plastic or metal, you should always opt for a so-called bunded tank. These unique tanks are used in a wide variety of industries, but are particularly vital to the agricultural sector for a number of reasons.

What are bunded fuel tanks?

In simple terms, a bunded fuel tank is a tank within a tank, with two walls between the inner fuel storage area and the outside world. Under ordinary circumstances, only the inner tank is used to store fuel, while the outer tank stays empty and is used as a redundancy measure in cause the inner tank fails. For example, if you purchased a 1000-litre bunded fuel tank, the inner tank would have the 1000-litre fuel capacity, while the outer tank would remain empty.

What are the advantages of choosing a bunded fuel tank over a conventional, single-skinned fuel tank?

As you can imagine, having a secondary tank surrounding your fuel tank can be beneficial in a number of ways, particularly for agricultural applications.

To start with, the presence of the secondary, outer fuel tank means that if the main tank springs a leak, the outer tank catches the fuel and stores it safely until the tank can be replaced. This is particularly useful for steel tanks, as any rust that affects the inner tank can be practically impossible to detect and repair before leaks occur, but it is just as useful for plastic tanks.

Catching leaking fuel in this way prevents the fuel from soaking into the ground around your tank; as well as saving you money, this also prevents leaking fuel from contaminating the soil and ground water in and around your farm, a potentially catastrophic occurrence than can badly affect your crops and/or livestock and may place you and your farm in legal hot water.

Bunded tanks are also much more resistant to leaks caused by exterior damage, such as collisions with heavy farming equipment or sharp implements; oil tankers at sea have double-layered hulls that work on the same principle, preventing collisions with icebergs and other hazards from spilling their precious loads. Bunded fuel tanks are therefore particularly useful on heavily mechanised farms, or if you keep your fuel tanks in relatively open, vulnerable locations.

To learn more about fuel tanks, contact a company like Total Generators.