Removal & Decommissioning
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Britteco swaps worn kerosene and heating oil tanks, takes old ones away and cleans red diesel stores for hill farms, hotels and depots across Cumbria, from Carlisle and Penrith to Kendal and Barrow-in-Furness. Cumbrian jobs are run from our Harrogate base, with the tanker, lifting kit and new bunded tank arriving together.
Mains gas never reached much of Cumbria. At the 2021 Census, 7.6% of households in the old county relied on oil alone for heating, the highest share anywhere in North West England. Fell farms, guest houses, pubs and lakeside hotels burn kerosene from a tank in the yard too, and plenty of those tanks are single-skin units fitted a generation ago.
Hill sheep farming dominates, with hardy Herdwicks on the high ground, so a farm diesel tank for tractors, quads and feeders usually stands beside the heating oil. Agricultural contractors, haulage yards and the gritting depots that keep the A66 and the Shap road open in winter hold bulk gas oil, and small petrol stations in the market towns may still have tanks buried below the forecourt.
Heavy industry clusters on the coast. Sellafield near Seascale, Europe’s largest nuclear site with around 10,000 staff, now handles waste storage and decommissioning, while BAE Systems builds Astute-class submarines inside the Devonshire Dock Hall at Barrow. Heidelberg Materials quarries limestone at Shap Beck, and plant hire firms and care homes across the county keep generators and site bowsers that need clean diesel.
Replacement is the job we plan most often in Cumbria.
Ordered from the most common request in the county downward.
Run out of heating oil or diesel in Cumbria?
24/7 emergency heating oil, kerosene and diesel delivery from 100 litres, including nights, weekends and bank holidays.
Cumbria falls within the Environment Agency’s Cumbria and Lancashire area. Storm Desmond in December 2015 set a UK 24-hour rainfall record of 341.4 mm at Honister Pass, and in Carlisle the Eden peaked at 7.80 m at Sheepmount, its highest level on record, as roughly 2,100 properties flooded. On the Willow Holme industrial estate the city’s flood investigation recorded oil and diesel escaping from vehicle dealers into the water.
Under the Eden valley, the Penrith and St Bees Sandstones are the main aquifers, so a split tank between Penrith and Appleby can reach groundwater as well as the nearest beck.
Commercial sites storing over 201 litres fall under the Control of Pollution (Oil Storage) (England) Regulations 2001, which call for containment of at least 110% of capacity; farm fuel has its own agricultural rules, and GPP2 is the shared reference. Each job ends with consignment or waste transfer notes and a degassing certificate or certificate of disposal.
Our engineers cover the whole of Cumbria, including these towns.
Rarely for long. A weep at the base of a steel tank usually means corrosion working outwards from water lying inside. Stop filling it and we will empty it and fit a bunded replacement.
Our Harrogate engineers cover all of Cumbria, from the South Lakes to the Eden valley. We pump out what is left, cut the tank down where a lane is tight, and take it away with a certificate of disposal.
The size of the new tank, how far it must be carried from a hard track, and how much oil and sludge remains in the old one. Keeping a hotel’s boilers running during the swap adds a temporary tank. Send photos and we will quote before booking.
Underground petrol tank removal begins with pumping out what is left and making the tanks gas-free, because vapour is the main hazard. They are then dug out, or foam filled where they run under a building or road edge, and you receive a gas-free certificate for a buyer or the council.
Commercial sites come first, but we also replace heating oil tanks for Cumbrian homeowners. See domestic oil tank replacement and removal for what happens on the day.
The same northern crews work in the counties around Cumbria.
Send the tank size, what it holds and a few photos of the access. We will reply with a method, a fixed quote and a date that suits your farm or business.
