Subject: A 55 gallon drumshop?

From: [email-masked] (Nick Pine)
Date: 21 Nov 1995 09:31:31 -0500

Does anyone else collect used 55 gallon drums? 

This Spring, I put an ad in a local paper asking for some drums for a solar
project, and got a call from a food processing plant who offered 40 a month.
I've collected about 300 so far, about half steel and half plastic. They are
about 2' in diameter and 3' tall, and they weigh about 15 pounds empty and
450 pounds when full of water. The plastic ones should last a long time; the
steel ones might only last 20 years.

At the moment, I have 61 of them sitting in my backyard, which
amuses the neighbors. I'm wondering what to do with them...

Marge Wood of Abilene, TX, suggests building a "solar hot cube"...

>Nick, did you ever try the idea of building a "solar hot cube" in the
>form of a concrete porch with water modules (55 gal drums, old milk jugs,
>whatever) set into it and built on the sunny side of the house so it could
>look pretty and do something at the same time?

I guess pretty-looking is in the eye of the beholder... Why concrete,
I wonder? Why not just lay a piece of plastic on the ground to keep down
the dust, and put the drums on top. When they are filled with water,
they won't go anywhere. The cube needs insulation on all five sides,
but perhaps not much in the floor, since the cold water will probably stay at
the bottom, if the water temperature is above 39 F.

For the perimeter drumwall, you could lay 2 8' pressure treated 2 x 4s on the
ground, 2' apart, put 4 drums on top of them, standing up, fill them with
water, put two more plain 2 x 4s on top of those drums, so the outside edges
of the tops and bottoms of the drums are tangent to the outside edges of the
2 x 4s, fill those drums, lay 2 more 2 x 4s on top of those drums, and 2
more horizontal drums on top, to make a 8' tall x 8' long wall.

Then attach vertical 1 x 3s to the horizontal 2 x 4s every 4' along the wall
(3 of them for an 8' long wall) and attach some 4'x 8', 2" thick pieces of
Styrofoam to the 1 x 3s with some long decking screws. Paint the foamboard
with latex or acrylic paint. (Here you can be an artist :-) to make it last
a long time. Paint the south side a dark color, and attach a thin layer of
polycarbonate glazing to it, 3 or 4" away from the foamboard. Put a couple
of plastic film dampers at the top and the bottom of the south side. Build
3 more perimeter walls and fill the rest of the cube inside with 10 more
drums. Lay two pieces of foamboard on top and put a 10' x 10' piece of EPDM
rubber over that for a roof, with some rocks on top to hold it down (or old
tires, if you like the AE look :-) 

Voila. An 8' cube containing about 42 55 gallon drums full of water. The most
expensive thing is the 10 sheets of Styrofoam, $160 at 50 cents a square foot.
This would store the heat equivalent of about 10 gallons of oil at 130 F.
Enough for several days with no sun. I think it would make a dandy backup
house heater and water heater, if combined with a low-thermal-mass sunspace...

Where can you get some free 55 gallon drums near Abilene?

---

A solar heated workshop might be more interesting. Seems to me it could be
mostly built using the drums themselves, for structure and heat storage,
with some polyethylene film and Styrofoam walls. This might cost $500 or so,
for 12' x 16' of interior heated and lighted space...

Some ASCII sketches, not to scale...

	20'

 --------------------                  I might make this with a 9' ceiling,
|D      D h   |D|    |                 with 16' 2 x 4's running across
| . . .12'. . |D| .  |                 the ceiling on 4' centers, and 
|D        h   |D|    |                 a layer of 4' burlap attached to 
| . . . . . . |D| .  |                 the bottom of the 2 x 4's, and 
|         h16'|D|    | 20'             covered with a cement slurry.
|D. . . . . . |D| .  |                 Insulation might be leaves piled
|         h   |D|    |                 on top of the ceiling. The north
|D. . . . . . |D| .  |                 roof might be 1/4" exterior flakeboard
|         h   |D|    |                 over 16' 2 x 6s on 2' centers.
|D   D     D  |D|    |                 The south wall would be 20' long,
 ------door----------                  with 16' 2 x 6s every 4', with a
                                       single layer of 16' wide greenhouse
          h is a hinge                 poly film attached at the edges. 

           .   -  -  -  -  -  -  -
      /  . r.     r is a right angle
  14.7'.     .                         Polyethylene film for commercial
  /  .      6'.                        greenhouses costs about 5 cents
   .        *  . \                     per square foot, and comes in rolls
 ..........h..... 16'          14.7'   16' wide and 100' long. It lasts 
|D    .   .   |D|. \                   for 3 years, and it's recyclable.
|     . | .   | | .                    If it's covered on the outside in
|D    . 9'.   |D|  .                   the summer with a piece of 15 cent
|     . | .   | |   .                  per square foot greenhouse shadecloth
|D    .   .   |D|   a.                 it should last longer. In the winter 
 ---------------------------------     the shadecloth would hang vertically
                | 3.8'|                inside the sunspace. 

Some hinged panels could be raised up to admit some daylight and solar heat
into the room. The open position is shown above with a *.

A fan, might be used to draw down heat from the peak of the roof to heat up 
the room or the south wall drums. 

Greenhouse suppliers also sell inexpensive aluminum extrusions for attaching
layers of poly film to commercial greenhouses. If these are used to hold
the poly film, changing it every three years should only take an hour or so.

The north roof might be covered on top with EPDM rubber.

This might make a good doghouse, too. I'm a bit worried about burglars.
It might also have an insulated garage door.

10 'a BASIC solar shed design program,
20 'starting with an equation of form x^4 + Ax^3 + Bx^2 + Cx + D = 0
30 DS=16'shed depth (feet)
40 LSH=20'shed length (feet)
50 HS=9'shed height (feet)
60 LS=16'south wall height (feet)
70 A=-2*LS'constants related to geometry
80 B=LS^2-DS^2
90 C=2*LS*DS^2
100 D=DS^2*(HS^2-LS^2)
110 X=LS-HS'initial guess at clerestory slant height
120 XL=X
130 RES=X^4+A*X^3+B*X^2+C*X+D
140 X=X-.00001*RES
150 IF ABS(X-XL)>.00001 GOTO 120'iterate to 0.001% accuracy
160 DGF=180/(4*ATN(1))'to convert from radians to degrees
170 OPEN "shedout" FOR OUTPUT AS #1
180 PRINT#1,
190 PRINT#1, "Shed depth  (feet--NS):";DS
200 PRINT#1, "Shed length (feet--EW):";LSH
210 PRINT#1, "Shed height (feet):";HS
220 PRINT#1, "South wall slant height (feet):";LS
230 PRINT#1,
240 SSD=SQR((LS-X)^2-HS^2)
250 PRINT#1, "South wall slope (degrees):";DGF*ATN(HS/SSD)
260 RPH=LS*HS/(LS-X)
270 PRINT#1, "Roof peak height (feet):";RPH
280 PRINT#1,
290 LN=SQR(DS^2-X^2)
300 PRINT#1, "North wall slant height (feet):";LN
310 NWS = DGF*ATN(X/LN)
320 PRINT#1, "North wall slope (degrees):";NWS
330 PRINT#1,
340 PRINT#1, "Sunspace depth (feet):";SSD
350 PRINT#1, "South wall clerestory slant height (feet):";X
360 PRINT#1,
370 TP=.92'single layer poly film solar transmission
380 EIN=TP*1000*LSH*RPH
390 TA=32
400 PRINT#1, "Daily solar input (Btu):";EIN
410 PRINT#1, "Average ambient temp (F):";TA
420 RP=.8'R-value of single poly
430 RSW=10'(F-ft^2-hr/Btu)
440 PRINT#1, "R-value of shed walls:";RSW
450 RSC=20'((F-ft^2-hr/Btu)
460 PRINT#1, "R-value of shed ceiling:";RSC
470 POLYLOSSF=6*LS*LSH/RP'term for loss through poly film during day
480 SDRUMLOSSF=18*LSH*HS/RSW'term for loss through south drum wall at night
490 NDRUMLOSSF=24*LSH*HS/RSW'term for continuous loss through north drum wall
500 LOSSF=POLYLOSSF+SDRUMLOSSF+NDRUMLOSSF
510 TD=TA+EIN/LOSSF'steady-state drum water temp
520 RDN=RSW/(LSH*HS)'thermal resistance of north drumwall
530 RCEIL=RSC/(LSH*DS)'thermal resistance of shed ceiling
540 ROTHW=RSW/((LSH*2+DS)*HS)'thermal resistance of ENW walls
550 RP=1/(1/RCEIL+1/ROTHW)'parallel resistance of shed walls and ceiling
560 TR=TA+(TD-TA)*RP/(RDN+RP)'resistor divider calc
570 PRINT#1, "Steady-state room temp (F):";TR
580 PRINT#1, "Steady-state drum water temp (F):";TD
590 PRINT#1,
600 NSD=LSH/2*HS/3'number of 55 gallon drums in south wall
610 NOD=2*(LSH+DS)/4*HS/3'number of 55 gallon drums in other walls
620 ND=NSD+NOD
630 PRINT#1, "Total number of 55 gallon drums:";NOD
640 PRINT#1, "Number of drums in south wall:";NSD
650 CW=55*8*NSD
660 PRINT#1, "Weight of water in drumwall (pounds):";CW
670 SARD=2*(LSH*HS+LSH*2+HS*2)/RSW
680 RC=CW/SARD/24
690 PRINT#1, "RC time constant of drumwall (days):";RC
700 MGA=(25*NOD)/(RPH*LSH)
710 PRINT#1, "Thermal mass/glazing area ratio:";MGA
720 PRINT#1,
730 PRINT#1, "Days w/o sun  Drumwater temp"
740 PRINT#1,
750 FOR DAY=0 TO 7'days without sun
760 TDT=TA+(TD-TA)*EXP(-DAY/RC)
770 PRINT#1, DAY, TDT
780 NEXT DAY
790 CLOSE #1
 
Shed depth  (feet--NS): 16 
Shed length (feet--EW): 20 
Shed height (feet): 9 (3 drums high)
South wall slant height (feet): 16 
 
South wall slope (degrees): 67.09016 ["a" in the diagram above]
Roof peak height (feet): 14.7379 
 
North wall slant height (feet): 14.73758 
North wall slope (degrees): 22.91279 
 
Sunspace depth (feet): 3.803568 
South wall clerestory slant height (feet): 6.229272 
 
Daily solar input (Btu): 271177.4 
Average ambient temp (F): 32 
R-value of shed walls: 10 
R-value of shed ceiling: 20 
Steady-state room temp (F): 50.32511 
Steady-state drum water temp (F): 117.9244 
 
Total number of 55 gallon drums: 54 
Number of drums in south wall: 30 
Weight of water in drumwall (pounds): 13200 
RC time constant of drumwall (days): 11.55462 
Thermal mass/glazing area ratio: 4.580029 
 
Days w/o sun  Drumwater temp (F)
 
 0             117.9244 
 1             110.8007 
 2             104.2677 
 3             98.27622 
 4             92.78152 
 5             87.74236 
 6             83.12097 
 7             78.88274 

Nick

---

From: [email-masked] (Nick Pine)
Date: 28 Nov 1995 12:45:23 -0500

Mark Kinsler  <[email-masked]> wrote:

re a discussion of the storage of heat with lots of water-filled drums:

>  Clean out the drums very well, and try to make sure that your efforts
>are very well documented.  Why?  Because a lot of old drums buried on a
>piece of residential property is going to set environmental alarms all the
>way up to the Superfund.

Thanks for reminding me about this aspect. I wouldn't bury them, BTW...

>The government and your neighbors will find you or your heirs and give
>intense trouble because they'll think you were burying toxic wastes
>in the neighborhood. 

I do worry about this sometimes. I know that unscrupulous people sometimes
bury drums full of horrible things, eg Jimmy Hoffa, and that the EPA doesn't
like to see even empty drums without bungs around industrial sites, and that a
lot of companies worry that an empty drum with their name on it will somehow
get filled up with horrible stuff and buried, and then unearthed by ghoulish
lawyers. But I coast along naively believing that if I am actually doing no
harm, truth will eventually triumph over bureaucracy :-) Of course, there may
be trouble in between...

This brings to mind an unrelated matter that happened years ago. I was being
frivolously sued by the State of Pennsylvania, the DER, in fact. After months
and months and hoards of bureaucrats traveling from Harrisburg to Philadelphia
for meetings, I said to the Deputy Attorney General, "Look, how about this:
you win, and I pay you $1." He said "We can't settle for that. We've spent too
much effort on this case. That would look very bad." Vietnam comes to mind. Or
perhaps Bosnia. So we settled for 30 cents on the dollar, $900, total, a number
that made him happy, altho it didn't pay for all the bureaucrat-hours. Also a
number that my lawyer said would be the minimum amount necessary for me to go
to trial and win. This was an interesting exercise, but not one I'd care to
repeat. Having been through this sort of thing once, the prospect of doing
something like this again is not too scary for me. One just has to derail the
bureaucrats up front, somehow, I guess, so they don't lose face. Paperwork
sounds like a good idea :-) Everything has risks.

My drums come from a food processing plant, and their contents have
mostly been things like USP grade proplylene glycol ("edible antifreeze"?),
vegetable oil for frying, soap, bleach, sodium hydroxide, sauterne wine,
and lately potassium lactate. A few days ago, I emptied about 2 gallons of
60% potassium lactate (is this some kind of milklike product?) on the ground
in the parking lot of the food plant, and one of the employees rushed out and
took a sample of my chemical spill as it ran toward the grate and said "Don't
DO that! We get FINED for that. That grate goes into a stream, and there are
FISH in the stream." He went on to tell me that the lactate product was more
damaging to the stream than the glycol, which seemed odd. But I said OK I
won't do that... I guess anything is harmful, in sufficient concentration.

When I found out that my local trash hauler would not accept 55 gallon drums,
I thought about how to get I might rid of the drums I have, if I wanted to do
that, and checked around. When is a drum a drum? If I were to rent a torch and
cut up all the drums into half drums, would the trash hauler take those?
Quarter drums? Etc...

There is a local market for 55 gallon drums. Used metal drums sell for about
$1 each, a bit more for plastic, transportation not included, at a local farm
auction, via ads in the paper, garage sales, etc. US Plastics used to sell new
55 gallon drums for about $20 each, plus UPS. Local drum recyclers sell cleaned
drums for about $15 each. One local "recycler" will accept deheaded drums if
you pay them $75/ton, one ton minimum. Another will pay about a penny a pound 
for them as scrap metal, cut up, or more if they are intact, and they have
been to an EPA-certified drum cleaner, and each drum has its very own EPA-
traceable certificate of cleanliness. Another will take a simple statement
from me that I cleaned them.

The white plastic drums that I have have a phone number on the side, a national
clearinghouse/referral center for information about drum recycling, Russell-
Stanley in Nitro, WV, at (800) DRUM-CYCLE. Calling that number yielded a number
for Recycle, Inc. in South Plainfield, NJ, at (908) 756-2200. They have been in
business since 1987. This October, they recycled 59,781 drums and gave their
owners EPA certificates of cleaning and destruction. They carefully clean each
drum upside down on a conveyor belt, as it is dragged along by nozzles sticking
into the bungholes. Then they shred the steel drums and sell the steel to
people who make reinforcing rods for concrete. They pulverize plastic drums
and sell the plastic to people who make sewer pipe. This costs the drum owners
about $2 each, if the drums are labeled and last contained food processing 
products, and they have been rinsed out. It costs about $3 each if they have
not been rinsed out first. A hundred miles of transportation adds another $200
per truckload, ie about $1/drum, in a truck that holds about 260 drums, or 
more if they are plastic drums that have been cut in half horizontally, and
perhaps slit up the side so they can be nested. Steel drums are just stacked
3-high in the truck.

So there is a potential for local solar enthusiasts to save local companies
some money, if they "recycle" their empty drums. A nice little synergy...

National mail-order solar heating kits might work better with stackable
containers, in UPS-sized packages, to reduce UPS transportation costs. 
Perhaps 5 gallon plastic paint buckets with lids, or rectangular racks of
molded plastic containers. Two-liter soda bottles are not too hard to collect
locally. New, they cost on the order of 10 cents each. Less than a dollar
sometimes, when filled with soda. Stackable hard plastic racks to hold 8
of them cost about $3 each. Some have a 1 1/8" square hole in the middle
of each rack, for a pipe or a wire to keep the stack from falling over.

>  It happened in Ohio a few years ago.  Guy bought a house and found lots
>of drums under his sun porch.  Called the state EPA, which brought in
>equipment and personnel from here to hell.  Even after they figured out
>that the drums were there to add thermal mass to the sun porch, they were
>able to make a case for their efforts because there was some residue in
>the drums. 

Which they probably felt obliged to do, so as not to have wasted all their
efforts. I'm sure it was very reassuring to the neighbors, to have an opinion
based on all that equipment and personnel... 

>  Weird, no?  I learned of this from a presentation on hazardous waste 
>presented by an official of the Columbus, OH fire department last year.  
>So watch it.

OK. Thanks for the warning...

Nick