Rickhouse / barrel store flooring

[PeteB]

I am having issues with local authorities requiring me to have a concrete floor in my new, smallish, 60,000 litre barrel store.

I am in a rural location in Tasmania, Australia,  and there are no buildings within 50 metres, and they are up a slope.

They are requiring the floor to be flat with coving around the perimeter to contain any spill. That is creating a very dangerous situation.

I wish to have a gravel floor so any spill will soak away, which I think is reasonably common in other parts of the world.

I would appreciate it if any of you have information that I can present to prove my case for gravel.

Cheers, Pete

 

[PeteB]

No replies yet.    A simpler question to answer, what type of flooring you have seen in barrel stores?

[FIVE x 5 Consulting]

This is a big "it depends" question but in new construction at US distilleries I'm generally seeing slab floor with containment (either around the barrels or the whole building) and/or a requirement to have a retention pond adjacent (to which spills will run). Each locality has its own regulations and interpretation thereof. 

I'm sympathetic to your cause, but it may be challenging to convince an authority that you should be permitted to discharge spirits into the environment in the event of a disaster.

[SlickFloss]

Slab with containment or just slab is common here in states. You're essentially planning for run off which is interpreted as environmental contamination and not allowed here at all. 

Most people in the states are actually not in compliance with IBC/IFC and lack the permitting and variances needed to store how they do. Sheesh.

[PeteB]

From what I have found, ethanol is not classified as an environmental hazard in Australia, but in reality that would depend on the size and location of the spill.

A flat concrete slab with coving(raised edges) that contains a spill would be a very dangerous situation. Have you ever seen a gas / petrol station area around the pumps like that? Imagine a fuel spill and your car is sitting in a pool of very flammable liquid. They all slope to the perimeter into a drain that goes to an explosion proof containment. Concreted barrel stores should be the same.

60% ABV ethanol that is soaking into gravel floor will, in most situations, be too cold to produce vapors any where near LEL (Lower Explosive Limit) whereas pooling on a concrete floor is more likely to produce LEL. 

If ethanol spills onto a gravel floor and catches fire it will burn very slowly. Ethanol fireplaces and fire pits in homes are examples of safely burning ethanol.

[PeteB]

On 11/11/2023 at 8:46 AM, PeteB said:

Ethanol fireplaces and fire pits in homes are examples of safely burning ethanol.

The reason these burn slowly is because the liquid ethanol is below a layer of pebbles. This layer does 2 things, it keeps the flame heat away from the liquid so keeping it cooler, and oxygen can't get down through the small gaps in the pebbles to accelerate the fire.

[SlickFloss]

On 11/10/2023 at 3:46 PM, PeteB said:

From what I have found, ethanol is not classified as an environmental hazard in Australia, but in reality that would depend on the size and location of the spill.

A flat concrete slab with coving(raised edges) that contains a spill would be a very dangerous situation. Have you ever seen a gas / petrol station area around the pumps like that? Imagine a fuel spill and your car is sitting in a pool of very flammable liquid. They all slope to the perimeter into a drain that goes to an explosion proof containment. Concreted barrel stores should be the same.

60% ABV ethanol that is soaking into gravel floor will, in most situations, be too cold to produce vapors any where near LEL (Lower Explosive Limit) whereas pooling on a concrete floor is more likely to produce LEL. 

If ethanol spills onto a gravel floor and catches fire it will burn very slowly. Ethanol fireplaces and fire pits in homes are examples of safely burning ethanol.

If they knew your idea was diffusion through earth (in the states pollution) they may reinterpret that code. Big enough set backs around buildings though and you can probably get anything done.

In the states our best practices have us addressing leakers and spills as they come up and codes are more to address catastrophic failure. So best practices a leaky barrel should be removed, repaired, and returned to resting. Any fluid pooled should be addressed at this time as well. A failing or failed rickhouse should have a perimeter that can be secured to mitigate excess property damage of surrounding as well as injury to responders. For instance our 7800 barrel 5 story rickhouse has concrete floor without drains, and it is situated in a containment "moat" or divot in the earth. In the states, H3 coding focuses on containment and ventilation, but a lot of the variances allowed to our building codes for ethanol storage are granted because the actual reality of true catastrophic failure is total inventory loss. The goal for responders is not to put the fire out its to contain it and let it burn out itself usually (time and strategic dilution).

Here they govern the bigs and littles differently here. Traditional H3 works really well for people under a certain threshold. Once you have 1000s of barrels of inventory the fire code needs variances (adoption of Kentucky Code) for safety's sake. Both of them have us using concrete.