Corrosion in tank sumps is one of the leading causes to to increased maintenance bills due to accelerated corrosion that ultimately will take place. When technicians can’t access equipment in the tank sump environment due to corrosion, service calls take much longer to complete, this increasing labor costs ..unless you do something about it!
Many marketers are now becoming more proactive and taking corrosion inside their tanks sumps much more seriously these days and one of the most cost effective solutions they can reach for Franklin Fueling Systems Desiccant Packs. This simple in-sump solution absorbs humidity in the sump environment before it can begin corrosive damage to components.
Be sure to check out Franklin Fueling Systems Complete Line-up Of Products in Our Web Store!
And if you can’t find it, call us at 1.800.238.1225 or email us and we will be happy to help!!
Don’t hesitate to contact us If you have any questions about Franklin Fueling Systems products or would like to receive a quote. Contact us at 1.800.238.1225 or Email Us with any further questions or inquiries.
The John W. Kennedy Company appreciates your business and continued support!
Well look no further – click on the Veeder-Root logo below to visit our web store, where we have hundreds of the most popular Veeder-Root items ready to buy in our webstore and if you can’t find it there, please contact us!
If you have any questions about HydrX or would like to receive a quote for HydrX or any other Veeder-Root system and/or parts , please feel free to contact us at 1-800-451-4021 or Email Us with any further questions or inquiries.
The John W. Kennedy Company appreciates your business and continued support!
TARGETING THE ISSUE AND PREVENTING IT AT THE SOURCE
Water ingress and corrosion of fueling equipment is a systemic problem that is becoming increasingly more complex with Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD), the adoption of biofuels, and new engine technology that demands strict fuel quality. Most site owners are aware of this problem and are looking to take corrective and preventive steps against corrosion. When issues necessitate more-than-regular maintenance, it is time for action.
Cumberland Farms was actively seeking a solution to their corrosion challenges and were interested in trying out HydrX. Drawn to the product feature-set and comprehensive support of Veeder-Root, HydrX seemed like a no-brainer. The simplicity and support proved essential, as the HydrX test results spoke for themselves; especially during the unprecedented environment of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The HydrX Fuel Conditioning System’s ability to remove standing water from the lowest point of a fuel tank coupled with our unique fuel filtering technology helps site owners avoid costly equipment failures and downtime caused by excessive corrosion.”
– Stephen Coppola, Global Product Manager, Veeder-Root
A FAMILIAR PROBLEM – WATER
The systemic issues Cumberland Farms experienced at their initial HydrX installation site are not unique to the industry. When fuel, microbes, and water combine, the result is a corrosive environment.
Advancements in diesel fuel, particularly Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel and Biodiesel, create an environment where microbial growth can flourish. Water entry into the diesel storage environment is inherent in the process as it enters through leaky seals, flooded spill buckets, atmospheric moisture, and deliveries. Water entrained in a warmer fuel load may fall out of suspension when it enters the tank and cools down. It is the fuel-water interface that is central to microbial growth because the water provides a suitable environment for microbes to thrive within the underground storage tank.
For Cumberland Farms, that meant frequently troubleshooting emergency line leak test failures by replacing check valves, replacing dispenser filters due to slow flow, and even performing full STP replacement within 1.5 – 2 years from the date of installation.
ASSESSING THE SITUATION
Jim Scholes, Senior Project Manager of Construction, and his team at Cumberland Farms, knew that HydrX could help optimize the health of their diesel tanks by reducing water contamination and the Microbiologically Influenced Corrosion (MIC) that comes with it.
To fix these problems at the source, the Veeder-Root team began with a preliminary site inspection and evaluation. This included obtaining baseline fuel samples from the tank and nozzle, analyzing samples for baseline acidity and moisture content, and taking site measurements for the HydrX Fuel Conditioning System.
Site measurements were critical to understand how the tank was tilting. The Water Intake Device (WID) of HydrX is designed to extract water from the lowest point in the tank and is customized to work with the unique conditions at any site.
The fuel samples from the tank showed the expected symptoms for any site being affected by long-term water issues. There was visible corrosion on components exposed to the storage environment, and evidence of water and microbial growth in fuel samples obtained from the tank bottom.
PUTTING THE PLAN INTO ACTION
Solving the water issues discovered during the site evaluation began with a tank cleaning prior to the installation of HydrX, in order to reset the tank to a healthy baseline and to ensure optimum performance of the system. A tank that is clean to start results in a lower cost of ownership due to less frequent filter replacements, component services, and/or fueling system maintenance.
Next, the HydrX Fuel Conditioning System was installed to provide continuous water removal within the diesel underground storage tank. This particular tank was tilted away from the STP sump, which put the stagnant water 22 feet away from the point of entry into the tank. The WID was sized to reach this lowest point of the tank, ensuring the stagnant water would be eliminated.
I definitely want to use HydrX going forward, I think it has value in the new construction environment. Even with a new site, new tanks…we’re still seeing issues with ULSD. In my opinion, we should be installing this in new construction rather than just use it in a retrofit application at the trouble sites.
– Jim Scholes, Senior Project Manager of Construction, Cumberland Farms, EG Group
HYDRX WATER REMOVAL
Since the installation of the HydrX Fuel Conditioning System, the results have spoken for themselves. Within the first 24 hours, HydrX removed just over a half-gallon of water that had entered the tank since the tank was cleaned. Over the next 30 days, the extracted water volume continued to increase incrementally to nearly 1 gallon. The quality of the tank bottom fuel samples was visually evident. The samples were clean and bright with no signs of water present in the fuel.
After just 90 days, extracted water volume nearly doubled, fuel quality within the tank was restored, and fuel samples from the bottom of the tank were indistinguishable from those at the nozzle, indicating that the conditions in the tank have stabilized and microbial growth is being mitigated.
SEEING THE RESULTS
Looking at key leading indicators to corrosion, water content (PPM) in the samples from the bottom of the tank have shown a downward (favorable) trend. After 120 days, the values have stabilized at a low level and are now equivalent to the samples from the nozzle. The pH of the samples from the bottom of the tank started in a corrosive range. Since the HydrX installation, pH has also continued to improve, approaching 6.5 which is on the very edge of a passive oxide surface with no ongoing corrosion.
WATER CONTENT & pH
Use of the HydrX Fuel Conditioning System lowers the water content within the diesel fuel and restores pH to non-corrosive levels.
PUTTING A PAUSE ON CONDITIONING
To further prove system efficacy, HydrX was turned off for a period of time. It did not take long for there to be visible signs that the quality of the fuel was degrading and the eventual corrosive conditions would return.
After 30 days, there was evidence of standing water and dark particulate in the fuel. The fuel itself was losing clarity and turning to a dark amber color. When HydrX was restarted, there were immediate signs that the system was correcting the conditions inside the tank – standing water was eliminated and the clarity of the fuel returned.
THE PROOF IS IN THE PETROL
From the samples pulled at 120 days after installation, the evidence is clear that the system is working. Prior to the installation of HydrX, emergency service calls to correct corrosion related issues were frequent and started to show up not long after tank cleaning.
These issues consumed resources and caused downtime at the site. Post installation, corrosion-related service calls were eliminated and there are no leading indicators that they will be returning anytime soon. HydrX is protecting the conditions inside the tank from water and microbial growth.
DIESEL TANK MAINTENANCE
It is working so well, in fact, that after just a few months with HydrX in place, Cumberland Farms is planning a roll-out of the system at their new construction properties to prevent issues before they happen, not only as a reactive measure at existing sites.
“The return on investment? It pays for itself.”
– Chris Desaulniers, FSS Project Manager, Cumberland Farms, EG Group
TALK TO AN EXPERT
Other systems work to remove water from only the immediate area around the submersible turbine pump — HydrX is different.
HydrX uses suction tubes that extend along the Water Intake Device, removing water all along the tank bottom. Its unique vacuum mechanism is powered by the STP, continuously circulating tank bottom fluids through a filter and water containment vessel in the sump.
If you have any questions or would like to receive a quote for HydrX , please feel free to contact us at 1-800-451-4021 or Email Us with any further questions or inquiries.
The John W. Kennedy Company appreciates your business and continued support!
…But we at the John W. Kennedy Company decided to expand on Henrik Ibsen’s 1913 roughly coined phrase by making a picture more than just a picture worth a thousand words. We decided to make them a shopping tool and informational resource with simple mouse clicks on one image.
May not sound like anything different you’ve seen until you’ve seen JWK’s SBI – Shop By Image feature!
The John W. Kennedy Company has been using image mapping to organize information and build quotes off of since the early 2000s for a few of our larger customers. So it was only natural when we launched our online store in 2016 to use them directly to shop from as well, allowing site visitors to add equipment and parts directly to their shopping carts from an image! We have simply kept this feature on the down-low, mentioning them here and there to get a feel as to whether they would be used and how often.
In late 2018, working with our eCommerce provider, we customized our site to integrate image mapping directly into our eCommerce solution to allow us to map images in-house and drop them on our site to create a powerful tool that is becoming more and more popular. There is no middle people involved; just us, an image and our site! From concept to reality in less time than it can take to get a quote most days.
Blue Hill Express, Canton, MA 2009 image map
Blue Hill Express, Canton MA Encore dispenser image mapped from 2009
We have mapped out everything from exploded view parts breakdowns to an entire gas station. Some of those early image maps are still being used many years later. One set of complex maps compared the customer’s current spec to their proposed upgrade and the associated costs. Unfortunately, we can not disclose them due to their proprietary nature and agreements made with the customers but the impact they made was powerful.
In the case of new products, it allows us to hit the ground running by building the new products with a high degree of consistency and accuracy with all pertinent resources in tow such as product images, literature and videos . Kennedy warehouse staff even use them to identify components they are unfamiliar with in various systems like pipeworks.
Fairfield SCM-5DS simple image map of exploded view
The early image maps (like the ones above and to the left of Blue Hill Express) were much more involved and required several expensive software apps to create over the span of a few days that didn’t look nearly as sharp or cool as what we can do now.
By the time we made our jump to eCommerce in 2016, we were able to create them with one piece of open source software that provided a much cleaner look to the finished map with even more functionality. With all the information at our fingertips and all products in our system, simple image maps can be created in less than an hour like the Fairfield Industries SCM-5DS you see pictured to the right, while more complex ones may take a half day or more.
No “hover” effects for non-mouse driven devices
This is really a bit of a downer we hope to figure a way around moving forward but not holding our breath at a quick and easy solution. While you can still use the image maps on tablets and smartphones, they don’t provide the same impact, functionality, nor are the images as big as they are on a desktop or laptop but again, they still work and can be used on such devices. And depending on the browser being used on tablets and smartphones, some will open with just a touch while others require you to touch and hold to open a new tab. Yeah, I agree, the inconsistency in web browsers from device to device and IO to IO is pretty bad as well. We are all still learning this new digital world, even those building it. This is why you will not find a direct link to any image maps on the mobile version of our site as we do not drive customers away by frustrating them with a feature that does not work the same on every device.
At this time, the most popular image maps are the Franklin Fueling FE Petro submersible pump exploded views.
These very popular maps are used multiple times a day to find parts and provide much needed information in a format not found anywhere else and that’s where the John W. Kennedy Company excels over all others; provide much need information in a timely manner. We know who’s looking, who’s buying and when. We know vendors and our competition use our site for information from not just our analytics but from the horse’s mouth. What does it say about the competition when they use our site over their own or the vendors to get information from?
Pretty telling to say the least!
That tells us what we’ve known for nearly a century, information is still king! And that’s the best way we know how to win a customer’s loyalty; it’s not just about price but the support network and the timeliness of that support. This can also be seen with our trade shows we’ve hosted since the 90s and our daily efforts since 1930. And now, we are just trying to carry that effort forward to the digital world wide web.
So by all means, please click on the image below to explore our Shop By Image page that features mapped images from Fairfield Industries, Franklin Fueling Systems’ brands (Corrosion Control, Cable Tight, EBW, EVO, FE Petro and UPP), Morrison Brothers, NUPI, Omntec and OPW with more to follow!If you have any suggestions for image maps you would like to see, please feel free to email Shop By Image Suggeston
and if the resources are available, we will do our best to make it happen!
Can’t find what you are looking for on our site or have questions? Feel free to call us at 1.800.451.4021 or EMAIL US
The John W. Kennedy Company appreciates your business and continued support!
You can hang the Desiccant Pack off an existing unistrut or use it in conjunction with your EVO Series ATG and the Desiccant Pack Sensor as well.
