Thawing out a frozen water tanker valve without propane idea

Most tank fab shops that use them make their own (Curry Vac/Crown Tank being the primary ones I have experience with, but you can buy them and install on any tank. Here are a few aftermarket ones Varco sells. They aren't cheap, but the right tool for the job often isn't...

http://www.varcopumper.com/products.asp?dept=142

 

I always thought there should be a box like on food grade but heated

 

Of course you know you can get out of the truck and open and close the valve every 20 mins. But that only works until you say screw it lol.

 

Another method for thawing just the valve is to take a length of 4" flex hose, and a pick up truck. Back the pick up close to the back of your vac truck and place the hose over the exhaust pipe of the pick up and the other end against the valve. Set the idle up on the pick up and the heat from the exhaust will thaw the valve enough to get some water flow which will thaw it the rest of the way while unloading.

 

Where I' from, we just plumb a heat trace line of the engine coolant and wrap our valves and pump and then wrap it all with insulation. the heat trace for the most part just isn't shut off. couple of valves on the heat trace to shut off if your line gets cut or if winter is over and you don't want keep heating valves that no longer need it. S o yeah, during the winter the heat trace just does it's job as long as the truck is running.

 

I have used the pickup truck exhaust method and worked great. We had a guy blow up his trailer and almost kill a bunch of people with a mini torch. Don't ever recommend getting next to an oil field tanker with a flame. Just keep your valve open and if need be ram a grounding rod up there to get the water flowing.

 

Standard operating procedure in the Bakken when hauling fresh water is to carry a grass burner to thaw the valve. Production water wont freeze like fresh water but it will go boom if you use a torch on it.