How old are your liquid fertiser tanks?

[Ruston3w]

I was surprised to get an e-mail from my insurers saying they would not cover my 2 grp tanks after 15yrs.....I bought the tanks around 2000, they are chafer 36m3 and don't really seem "old" to me.
I could try other insurers but if I ask the question they probably might wonder why I ask, or wait and year then tell me the same?
I tried to get a working life figure from the tank manufacturer but as you might imagine they weren't prepared to commit themselves, no progress, should have kept renting I guess?
Anyone had similar questions?
Richard.

 

[stroller]

Is is possible to recycle them, or re line them, disposal won't be cheap

 

[Ruston3w]

Hence my post, I bought against a tax bill, wish I had rented instead. Funny though, yara don't have a straight answer to how long we keep the one we do rent....seems as though the insurers are moving the goalposts around quicker than the tank men can keep up with? Trying athird insurer now, seems a bit odd to me they don't know.

 

[stroller]

I rented my tank from omex, mainly because I couldn't afford to buy one, I hadn't thought about what happens at the end of its life. At least they inspect it every so often, hopefully they will also remove it at the end of its life.

 

[Brisel]

Yara removed an old rented 57m3 horizontal steel tank that was well past its best, with great chunks of rust coming out of the outlets. Cost £180/year to rent & I think it was 15 yrs old, so £2700 isn't unreasonable for a tank that would cost £6.5k to replace today. I now have 2 x 50m3 GRP silos instead for £200/year each. The March top up prices make renting on farm storage well worth it.

Would it be worth building a bund around your old tanks?

 

[Ruston3w]

Ah yes, the dreaded steel tanks, Chafer used to say put some Phosphate in first to make them last longer.....
These are new style grp, under 20yrs old, bunded from new, Yara happy to fill them but my insurers won't cover the whole farm yard without covering the tanks, hence the problem.
I think there was a time when Chafer was all over the place and hiring was a bit uncertain, we may have put suspension in them as well, hence wanted our own.
If they don't have a fixed time for replacing old grp who decides?

 

[Brisel]

If you opt to rent they will probably replace your old ones pretty quickly if they've got a sniff of an exclusive supply deal. Yara have always matched the best price from Omex or BFS or Frontier in the past so it's not like I'm paying a premium for their product. Tank rental is around £2k/year with an immediate £1.8k credit if I use their product. Not a difficult decision.

Yara are happy to do this as it makes their haulage logistics much easier if their customers have storage on farm. You've got a decent buffer for when spring deliveries are slow with demand. I can store 35% of peak spring requirement & will be putting up more tanks in a bund to take that to just over 50%. My deliveries come all the way from Dagenham so they aren't as sharp about topping me up if they can do 3-4 loads/day to someone like you in S Suffolk. 1 load/day is usually all a tanker can do here.