When to Move From Liquid Cylinders to an On-Site Bulk Tank

From hospitals to restaurants, various industries rely on atmospheric gases to run their business – and a lot of it. But what happens when supply can’t keep up with demand? If your company is running through more than one liquid cylinder per week, it may be time to consider a more efficient and economical option: an on-site bulk tank.

It’s common for smaller businesses to begin receiving gases in the form of high-pressure cylinders before upgrading to liquid cylinders as their business grows. Liquid cylinders, also known as dewars, store up to 100 times more product when the gas is in liquid form, and are a good next step for a growing business. Even so, depending on the type of work being done, 180-200 liter cylinders cannot always keep up with demand and present many hassles when it comes to storage, safety, usage and deliveries. Once you are using one or more per week or requiring weekly deliveries, your business may have reached the economic conversion point to move from liquid cylinders to installing a bulk tank.

Even then, why transfer away from a liquid cylinder system? Liquid cylinders take up floor space and storage, require on-site air quality monitoring equipment for leak detection and to identify when they are getting low, and consistently need to be swapped out. It is impossible for all of the residual product to be used at a customer site because a certain amount of pressure is required to create the flow needed to get to the full use point. Cryogenic liquids are a use-it-or-lose-it product. When delivered, cylinders warm and build pressure, but if not used, pressure is released and gas flows out of the vent. Once 20% or below of the cryogenic liquid remains, the cylinder flow quickly decreases and is no longer functional.

Taking time out of the workday to move or change out liquid cylinders decreases your company’s cost effectiveness and efficiency. As tank pressure requires maintenance, there is a very slight safety risk when customers physically have to move or disconnect one cylinder and connect a new one. The advantage of a bulk tank over a liquid cylinder lies in its higher storage capacity, tank location and reduced maintenance. Bulk tanks are located outside, freeing up storage space and the customer is required to handle very little. Rocky Mountain Air comes and fills the tank as needed, alerted by our telemetry system, making it so there are no cylinder change outs or moves, saving you time and money. If that doesn’t sound like reason enough, switching to an on-site bulk tank means that 100% of the residual product is used, moving your company toward higher efficiencies.

At Rocky Mountain Air, our sophisticated telemetry process allows us to record and monitor the liquid levels of bulk tanks remotely and deploy trucks to refill them accordingly, reducing the attention your team needs to spend monitoring the tanks. This technology also cuts down the number of costly deliveries to ideally once per month, with some variance depending on your business’s product usage habits. Additionally, there is no supplier-customer interaction necessary. You may even be able to receive a lower insurance rate once the risk has been reassessed, as our delivery drivers and experts will perform all the work for you. It’s worth checking with your insurance provider.

Rocky Mountain Air provides a service with the proper equipment and experts to assist you in appropriately sizing a bulk tank based on your needs. We provide a customized solution that makes sense and ensures that the customer uses the products delivered with the most economically feasible method for their usage. Oversized tanks will result in a loss of product due to rising heat and pressure when not enough product is drawn for a long period. To protect a customer from buying too large or too small of a tank, we will conduct a thorough evaluation of your usage levels and recommend the best sizing. We have the tools to input product usage and the pressure the tank must operate at, which then determines the appropriate sized tank and pressure rating needed for an economical solution for your business.

Ideally, a tank will be big enough to hold the desired amount of thermal efficiency, with deliveries no more than every 3-4 weeks. Our goal is to customize the perfect sized tank for your business, large enough so that it is being used over the course of a month with the least amount of product loss, fewer deliveries times that slow down your work and more economic spending for your company. We promise flawless dependability, which starts with selling you a system and product you can trust will meet your needs. Of course, there are certain applications where a bulk tank is not feasible. Our product experts can evaluate whether or not it is time to make the switch from liquid cylinders to an on-site bulk tank and calculate the appropriate sizing prior to installation. Contact your local branch today to set up an evaluation on how to optimize your gas usage, decrease deliveries and increase safety.