Iain Hill

John, Thank you for your insight. I am not a code expert by any means. We are located in Vancouver, Canada and are building the distillery together with a distillery bar in a very busy part of the city. We are working with a good code consultant to gain approvals for the operation. We have come very far and have essentially overcome all hurdles and restrictions. We were initially classified by fire code as what is called an F1 occupancy which is given for the most hazardous uses (paint manufacturing, explosives etc) and since we are in a very urban city core we were faced with some major challenges. Our city has never been asked to deal with a use like ours in an area like this. Our consultant has been able to gain approvals for our occupancy but we are left with a requirement under Vancouver Fire Code to install this retention tank. With that in mind I was wondering if anyone had come across any equipment that could be used for in line ethanol monitoring. I know of eqpt for detecting vapours but am hoping to find something for rapid, reliable liquid detection in-line. Maybe we could use a vapour detector in the head space of our trade waste interceptor as a way to indicate high conc ethanol in effluent. I just don’t have any experience with this stuff. Thanks for you thoughts,

I am planning a new distillery and am required by the local city authorities to install an alcohol retention tank to guard against any major spill into the city sanitary sewer. I am having difficulty finding any information on how this system might be designed. The local authorities don’t really know anything about it and only stipulate that I have such a tank. What I had anticipated originally was to have some kind of in-line ethanol detection equipment in the sewer line that could control a valve to divert any spill to the retention tank but I have not been able to find any equipment that would do this. Another option was a bit more manual. We would have effluent from floor drains run into our trade waste interceptor (solids interceptor) then continue from there to a retention tank and from the outlet of the retention tank to the sanitary sewer. A valve at the outlet of the retention tank could be closed in the event of a spill and could also be left closed at the end of a work day in the distillery to guard against any spill in the absence of personal. This is of course not ideal but might appease the city. Does anyone have experience with this issue? Thank you,