I was filtering grease today, trying to get ahead. I had about 40 gallons filtered, 10 in my tank and about 25-30 in my filtered barrel (bottom barrel in my other post).
Well, I was filtering while I was cutting the grass and doing other things. At some point a hose broke, just about the lowest point in the system and I now have a 25-30 gallon grease slick in my driveway and garage.
Pics to follow......
Wow, I'm glad it's that and not a problem with the car.
I'm wondering how the fuel pump copes long term....
While a spill is a major PITA, at least it's not what I expected it to be. I thought I was coming in here to see pictures of a burned up carcass that used to be a car. I'm so glad that's not the case.
In reply to Derick Freese:
At least the resulting fire would smell like tasty fast food.
I don't envy anyone who has to clean up that much grease.
A guy spilled about 3 gallons of hydraulic oil in a warehouse where I worked, man talk about a mess. I don't envy you.
No pics yet but lemme tell you, this SUCKS!!!!
I spent about 5 hours and I'm not 1/2 done (though I'm done for the night). I used about 150 lbs if kitty litter and figure I'll use another 50-75 for the corner of the garage that isn't done yet. I pressure washed the driveway and think it's faded but not gone. Last year we had the driveway widened and that's stained for sure. I'm bumming for sure but it could have been worse.
I read of a guy that was picking up grease from a restaurant. He had about 250 gallons in a 500 gallon tank on his trailer. He went in the restaurant to chat a little bit before collecting the grease. Anyway, he comes out of the restaurant to find about 125 gallons running through the parking lot. The sucky part is this was a strip mall so there are other business owners that are going to be none to happy. I don't remember what exactly he did to completely clean it up but I seem to remember he picked up 2 pallets of kitty litter.....
OK, here's some pics.
Here's where the leak happened, at the hose coming out of the top of the pump in this pic (this is before the leak, obviously).
Here's what greeted me. Some of what looks like dry concrete is actually floor dry so it's a bit worse than it looks
Another view
One good shot deserves another
The culprit? This 3.4" hose. It looks like an M80 went off inside it. That's just from head pressure, no pump was turned on, or even plugged in.
I still have HOURS of clean up waiting for me at home......
Dawn dishwashing liquid cuts grease.
See story in link...
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/DAWN+REALLY+WORKS+ON+GREASE+WHEN+TRUCK+SPILLS+FAT+ON+ROAD.-a064758757
Do you count the kitty litter against you 'savings'? 
Sorry 
one question.....You're using drain hose on a pump?
Look into pool pump hoses for any sort of pressure above 1psi
You best hope NONE of your neighbors has EPA on the brain....Even though most of it's on the concrete...oh, the fine... The star pattern in the burst hose looks like you had a blockage, somehow, and it just blew. That, or there was a nick, small outer cut, abbrasive point on the hose, and that was the cause of failure. Still, having used that identical hose, it takes A LOT to make it blow out like that. I would check all your other hoses for the aforementioned potential problems. Thanks for keeping up with the posts--again, it shows us all what ACTUALLY LIVING with a grease car is all about, not just a simple mention by the local news...
JoeyM wrote: Wow, I'm glad it's that and not a problem with the car. I'm wondering how the fuel pump copes long term....
Thanks, I'm glad the car is alright too. As long as the fuel is clean, and more importantly dry it has no ill-effects. I' ve talked to guys with well over 100,000 miles on grease and as long as you don't skimp on the filtering all is fine.
I bet on a hot, sunny day, this is the most delicious smelling mess you ever made in that garage.
triumph5 wrote: You best hope NONE of your neighbors has EPA on the brain....Even though most of it's on the concrete...oh, the fine... The star pattern in the burst hose looks like you had a blockage, somehow, and it just blew. That, or there was a nick, small outer cut, abbrasive point on the hose, and that was the cause of failure. Still, having used that identical hose, it takes A LOT to make it blow out like that. I would check all your other hoses for the aforementioned potential problems. Thanks for keeping up with the posts--again, it shows us all what ACTUALLY LIVING with a grease car is all about, not just a simple mention by the local news...
i don't think straight, but filtered, vegtable oil is on anyone's hit parade. While a nasty mess, it will bio-degrade over time. Squeege it into the grass.
triumph5 wrote: You best hope NONE of your neighbors has EPA on the brain....Even though most of it's on the concrete...oh, the fine... The star pattern in the burst hose looks like you had a blockage, somehow, and it just blew. That, or there was a nick, small outer cut, abbrasive point on the hose, and that was the cause of failure. Still, having used that identical hose, it takes A LOT to make it blow out like that. I would check all your other hoses for the aforementioned potential problems. Thanks for keeping up with the posts--again, it shows us all what ACTUALLY LIVING with a grease car is all about, not just a simple mention by the local news...
Yeah, I'm hoping the EPA doesn't get involved.
I agree that the hose looks like it burst due to pressure building up but here's the thing. There was no flow at that point. I'm hoping someone cal help me make sense of it all. Look at the pic below:
The hose at the upper left is connected to my filtered barrel. It gravity feeds into the pump. The output of the pump is attached to about 12' of hose with a ball valve. The ball valve was closed (as it always is when not fueling the car) and is maybe 1/2 to 2/3 full at any point in time. I just don't understand how it blew. I looked at the hose to see if there was any evidence of a rodent chewing on it and I didn't see anything. Obviously I'm going to replace all non-reinforced hose with reinforced hose but I'd still like to know if was was just the head pressure.
Any engineer types have any way of figuring out the theoretical head pressure?
So my guess is that this smells pretty tasty to both humans and critters. A little critter nibbling could have been the start?
i'm going with sabotage by a dieting neighbor that was tired of smelling fries every time you drove by.
DrBoost wrote:triumph5 wrote: You best hope NONE of your neighbors has EPA on the brain....Even though most of it's on the concrete...oh, the fine... The star pattern in the burst hose looks like you had a blockage, somehow, and it just blew. That, or there was a nick, small outer cut, abbrasive point on the hose, and that was the cause of failure. Still, having used that identical hose, it takes A LOT to make it blow out like that. I would check all your other hoses for the aforementioned potential problems. Thanks for keeping up with the posts--again, it shows us all what ACTUALLY LIVING with a grease car is all about, not just a simple mention by the local news...Yeah, I'm hoping the EPA doesn't get involved. I agree that the hose looks like it burst due to pressure building up but here's the thing. There was no flow at that point. I'm hoping someone cal help me make sense of it all. Look at the pic below:
Off to the dark side: Does anyone have access to your garage who doesn't like what you're doing? Has mentioned the smell (If any), the "noise of that diesel car", anything like that? You'd be amazed at what damage people can do with very little provocation, or it's just been eating at them for a while--or maybe not. Anyhow, I'm thinking an internal check valve in the pump. OR, when you shut if off, the vanes acted as a check valve and did not allow the pressure in the line to bleed off. Give it a weak point, and there's your mess. If there's a valve above that white fitting that goes through the plywood, that was closed, and the pump was turned on for even a short time--by accident, hitting the wrong switch--then pressure would have built up. It's just really odd. especially with that type of burst pattern in the hose.
Yuck. My first thought was EPA also; hopefully it's not an issue for you since cleaning up that mess looks like enough work without having to wade into bureaucratic BS too. Pressure washer plus Dawn ought to get you a long ways towards clean once the bulk of the liquid is soaked up.
Reread post. Leak from non-pressuirzed vertical hose from pump. My guess now, someone cut it.
In the Cincinnati story that I posted about earlier I remember that the whole mess was washed right down the sewers.
Tanker truck of pig fat overturns and spills.
Fire trucks were used to supply water.
Street cleaners (with brushes) scrubbed while drums of Dawn were applied, repeatedly.
While I applaud your desire, that rig looks pretty half-baked.
You really need to be using braided hose, or better yet just plumb the whole things with PVC.
Your platform bracing, and the barrel really should be secured with strapping.
You should also have some sort of dam / reservoir around the rig to catch any leaks. Grainger (or any other industrial supply store) should have a variety of products, generally under safety > spill control. Anything that will hold the total volume you're working with will do, even a kiddie pool. ... although you'll then want to make sure your pump is above the maximum height of the reservoir...
..and is that a sharp 90 degree bend and reduction right after the outlet on the pump? I suppose it's better than starving your pump on the inlet side, but you're just killing pressure.
fromeast2west wrote: While I applaud your desire, that rig looks pretty half-baked.
I'd say at least 3/4 baked.
fromeast2west wrote: You really need to be using braided hose, or better yet just plumb the whole things with PVC.
Are you talking braided as in braided brake lines kind of braided. Well, I'm not spending many hundreds of dollars for that stuff, I'm sure there's more affordable solutions. I'm not sure if the WVO is corrosive with the vinyl (?) clear plastic hose or not. I'm looking into it. I think I'm going to go with CPVC now in every place that I can. I didn't go PVC everywhere because I wanted to be able to open the system as needed. In the early stages (I'm still in the early stages now) I needed to remove a hose for one reason or another many, many times. So, I'll go CPVC where I can but make it removable.
fromeast2west wrote: Your platform bracing, and the barrel really should be secured with strapping.
Not sure why. No earthquakes here, or tornadoes either. I thought about using some sort of cable is a fail-safe in case a shelf collapsed, but I figured I'd just make sure the shelf didn't collapse 
fromeast2west wrote: You should also have some sort of dam / reservoir around the rig to catch any leaks. Grainger (or any other industrial supply store) should have a variety of products, generally under safety > spill control. Anything that will hold the total volume you're working with will do, even a kiddie pool. ... although you'll then want to make sure your pump is above the maximum height of the reservoir...
Yeah, man I'm kicking myself like crazy over this. When 'designing' my setup I told myself I was going to, basically, build a sand box under it because another guy had some huge leak like this. As you can see, I didn't do it. I'm going to do something for sure now. I was actually thinking about a kiddie-pool today.
fromeast2west wrote: ..and is that a sharp 90 degree bend and reduction right after the outlet on the pump? I suppose it's better than starving your pump on the inlet side, but you're just killing pressure.
I'm not concerned with killing pressure. As it is I fill my 10 gallon tank in about 3 minutes with that pump.
All that being said, I'm no engineer and welcome ideas from you folks out there. But I should mention, there is a second brace for the upper shelf that you can't see in that picture.
I'm thinking a few buckets of clothes washing powder from Sam's, or the really big size dishwashing liquid would go a long way. Seeing as how you spilled FOOD, I dunno how the feds could get involved, but I'm sure they would love to just to have one more thing to berkeley with us peons over. What's your professional opinion, alfadriver? Spilled food enough to get feds involved?
Anyway, NEXT TIME, stronger hose there. Maybe even break down and spend $100 on some stainless braided hose, as suggested and seeing as how you've had a failure there already. I guarantee you that no mouse is going to cut through that stuff. Probably not a neighbor either, without a die grinder, compressor and some air hose. And a containment barrier is a great idea too.
I don't think you'd have too many gov't issues because this isn't a business, but food grease is regulated and considered a pollutant if it gets to the water supply / storm drains. For example: http://www.epa.ohio.gov/portals/41/sb/publications/restaurant.pdf
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