Galvanised steel tanks in Manchester

Storage above contaminated ground

Many of the city's industrial sites sit on made ground that nobody wants to disturb. Excavating for a buried tank there means testing, segregating and disposing of spoil, and sometimes dealing with groundwater in the hole. Standing the storage on a slab sidesteps most of that, and keeps the water where it can be seen and maintained.

The demand comes from the estates and depots: process and recycled water at plants in Trafford Park and along the Ship Canal, vehicle wash-down at bus and haulage depots, and rainwater harvested from the big roofs of logistics sheds around the M60 and M62.

Beyond the industrial estates

Sports grounds, golf courses, nurseries and garden centres on the edge of the conurbation use steel tanks for irrigation, filled from roof runoff or a borehole. On farms at the fringe they hold wash-down water for yards and parlours.

• Process and recycled water
• Depot and vehicle wash-down
• Rainwater off warehouse roofs
• Irrigation for pitches and growers

How a tank goes up

Another contractor pours the slab, designed for the tank when it is full. On arrival our first job is a survey of that slab for level and position, since any error in it is carried straight up the shell.

Galvanised panels arrive flat and are bolted together course upon course until the shell stands at full height, which suits a yard where a single large vessel could never be delivered. Inside it hangs a purpose-made liner that holds the water by itself; the bolted seams of the shell stay dry. Pipe connections, the overflow and a level indicator come next, and each is made watertight through the liner wall.

Commissioning and timing

We bring the water level up a step at a time and inspect the shell, the liner and every fitting at each step. From a finished slab to a working tank is typically a few days, which makes steel useful where a shutdown window at a Trafford Park plant is short.

Steel also leaves options open. If the site is redeveloped, as so much of Manchester's industrial land eventually is, a bolted tank can be dismantled and put up again elsewhere.

Harvesting rain from a big roof

A distribution shed off the M62 can have a roof the size of several football pitches, and in a wet city that roof produces a great deal of clean water. Stored in a steel tank beside the building, it can supply toilets, vehicle washing or landscape irrigation instead of mains water. Your engineer or supplier designs the filtration and the pumps; we build and line the store and connect the pipes they specify.