My experience of powder tanks, load it up, make sure you have a good seal on the pot lids after the product has gone in. Drive to destination, connect pipe from tank to silo. Put the blower pipe on and put pressure in the tank(last I used was a 2bar blower), open valve to release produce when pressure at the right level and try and maintain a constant pressure. I prefer a belly tank to tipper tanks. You can really throw a belly tank around, very litte body roll, where as a tipper(the ones I’ve use sit on a skeletal type trailer) the weight is quite high up and they roll a bit. Also with a tipper you ideally need level ground to tip it. Some trailers have legs at the back to help with uneven ground. Thats about it in my experience, only ever done products for the glass industry.
DonutUK:
Pretty much as it says…what is powder tanker work all about…and yes, i gather it is the collection/delivery of powder in a tanker…but really looking for some experiences from those in the know!
What’s it all about?
Balance!
Between the correct air pressure and the correct product flow.
Types.
Pressure Tankers - Silos, Tippers, ISO Containers.
Gravity Tankers - Belly, Hopper or Banana.
Rotary Seals - BIB Containers or Feed Lorries.
Could possibly be driving one of these:
And never having done any sort of tanker work previously…really need to know what it will involve!
All depends what your’e delivering and what the loading place is like. I’ve collected from one place where you line the shoots up over the hatch tell the machine what weight you want in each pot and it does the rest for you. However I have also loaded at places where you have to guess, some drivers have stop watches, they time it how much they want in each pot. Get it wrong though and its a bit of messing about getting the product out unless its a belly tanker. Best bit, not much waiting about to tip, can take anything from 45 min to 1 hour to get tipped, again that depends on the product. I wouldn’t imagine you’ll get much POA, I used to tip on break but don’t think you’d get away with that now.
DonutUK:
Could possibly be driving one of these:
And never having done any sort of tanker work previously…really need to know what it will involve!
Many long hours in P&G West Thurrock 
To be honest, an explanation on here is likely to either take you hours to tip, or it will block the silo stack. Balance is the word and different products require different approaches. the regular drivers should be able to give you tips, one other problem to learn is how much to load unless it is on a bridge or a mix hopper
you should get full training on whichever tanker you have - go with the company way of doing things. It’s easy to pick up and yes it’s all about having a balance and an eye for what’s needed - some silo’s need a full 2bar but some smaller ones need very little pressure at all.
Like any work, you could be running round like a headless chicken or have a very easy life - just depends on the firm. Do everything right and it’s a nice relatively clean job but get it wrong and you’ll be going home covered in crap…
As has been said its all about getting the balance between product and air about right. If it is a powder ie,cement or powdered limestone etc, on a belly tank, it will not need much air going up the pipe, as long as it aint an horrendously long blow. Granular products will take more air and longer to blow due to the fact that they weigh more so take more shifting, except if you have got a tipping tank on, then granular tends to blow better than powder.
We do limestone and while it aint the cleanest of jobs it is one of the easiest going imo. Oh and yes you can throw a belly tank about more than a tipping tank and certainly more than a curtainsider. Had a trainee with me 2 weeks ago and for the first day he was ■■■■■■■■ himself every time we went into a roundabout or around what looked like a tightish corner. Unless you are pulling for a firm on a dedicated contract be prepared for plenty of cleaning out, easy on a tipping tank,ball-ache on a belly. Just remember if you aint sure ask and as I always tell the people I train up,your better spending an hour and half blowing than an hour and a half brushing up your bleedin mess.
Fileep:
All depends what your’e delivering and what the loading place is like. I’ve collected from one place where you line the shoots up over the hatch tell the machine what weight you want in each pot and it does the rest for you. However I have also loaded at places where you have to guess, some drivers have stop watches, they time it how much they want in each pot. Get it wrong though and its a bit of messing about getting the product out unless its a belly tanker. Best bit, not much waiting about to tip, can take anything from 45 min to 1 hour to get tipped, again that depends on the product. I wouldn’t imagine you’ll get much POA, I used to tip on break but don’t think you’d get away with that now.
Ive never used poa but at some jobs put a 45` in. Some of ours take 2 hours to blow(bleedin feed mills)
dowahdiddyman:
Fileep:
All depends what your’e delivering and what the loading place is like. I’ve collected from one place where you line the shoots up over the hatch tell the machine what weight you want in each pot and it does the rest for you. However I have also loaded at places where you have to guess, some drivers have stop watches, they time it how much they want in each pot. Get it wrong though and its a bit of messing about getting the product out unless its a belly tanker. Best bit, not much waiting about to tip, can take anything from 45 min to 1 hour to get tipped, again that depends on the product. I wouldn’t imagine you’ll get much POA, I used to tip on break but don’t think you’d get away with that now.I
ve never used poa but at some jobs put a45` in. Some of ours take 2 hours to blow(bleedin feed mills)
Do you still load the limestone by stopwatch? Sounds like your doing more than glass products now?
your better spending an hour and half blowing than an hour and a half brushing up your bleedin mess
So true!
Someone mentioned there is not much hanging about, obviously never done P&G Worms with EBT / Schmidt Heilbronn either 
Some of our deliveries can be 4 or 5 hour blows, these tend to be the land base blower jobs blowing at about 10p.s.i others we do from pulling up to pulling away 1hr for 30 tonne at a bar. Just take a good book with you and stand at the controls because if starts to block you need to be quick to knock it off
Wheel Nut:
your better spending an hour and half blowing than an hour and a half brushing up your bleedin mess
So true!
Someone mentioned there is not much hanging about, obviously never done P&G Worms with EBT / Schmidt Heilbronn either
Did P&G thurrock once(Norbert duckstranglers job at the time), and yes you’re correct I was there 8 hours in total. But, that was not our usual job, the glassworks we normally delivered at was a piece of pi$$ straight in connect and away she blows.
fileep, we dont do limestone to the glass works, they lost that contract from Dowlow, we pull limestone out of Ballidon, all loaded on weighbridges,but bloody slowly, how about 45 mins break in while loading powder, its a bloody joke.
dowahdiddyman:
Fileep:
All depends what your’e delivering and what the loading place is like. I’ve collected from one place where you line the shoots up over the hatch tell the machine what weight you want in each pot and it does the rest for you. However I have also loaded at places where you have to guess, some drivers have stop watches, they time it how much they want in each pot. Get it wrong though and its a bit of messing about getting the product out unless its a belly tanker. Best bit, not much waiting about to tip, can take anything from 45 min to 1 hour to get tipped, again that depends on the product. I wouldn’t imagine you’ll get much POA, I used to tip on break but don’t think you’d get away with that now.I
ve never used poa but at some jobs put a45` in. Some of ours take 2 hours to blow(bleedin feed mills)
Not Fridaythorpe?
Once went there with Turners from Longcliffe, took 4.5hrs and still took 8 tons back 
The silo wasn’t far away, but the pipe work went the most convoluted way that it trebled the length of blow
Not Fridaythorpe?
Once went there with Turners from Longcliffe, took 4.5hrs and still took 8 tons back
The silo wasn’t far away, but the pipe work went the most convoluted way that it trebled the length of blow.
No thankfully.Worst we do is Sherburn in Elmet. 2-2.5 hours. You know it`s crap when they have there own vacuum system for sucking it out when it blocks!
All these ■■■■ feed mills were designed for horse and cart and all want products that were never meant for blowing aswell 
.
DonutUK:
And never having done any sort of tanker work previously…really need to know what it will involve!
Was this picture taken at United Glass in Harlow?
I used to tip limestone granuals there from Dowlow quarry on Sterndale moor when I worked for AK Transport in 1996/7
DonutUK:
Pretty much as it says…what is powder tanker work all about…and yes, i gather it is the collection/delivery of powder in a tanker…but really looking for some experiences from those in the know!
Hi DonutUK,
There’s a little more info on powder tankers for you just here:
Some powder tanks tip as in the pics above, and here’s another:
Other powder tanks don’t tip and normally discharge through conical outlets at the bottom of the tank:
The non-tipping kind of powder tank can be tricky when you’re coupling up to them because the front of the trailer is the same width as your fifth-wheel:
Here’s a set of manufacturer’s instructions:
Operating a pressure tank isn’t the kind of thing that you can get wrong without some kind of consequences, so you will receive (lots of) training from the owner…
I hope that helps. 
Wheel Nut:
your better spending an hour and half blowing than an hour and a half brushing up your bleedin mess
So true!
Someone mentioned there is not much hanging about, obviously never done P&G Worms with EBT / Schmidt Heilbronn either
When BRT were working for EBT they had a 5/6day wait to tip both at Worms and Thurrock P&G.
Evidently Procters were prepared to pay massive demeurrage to use the silos as on site storage but insisted the driver stayed on site all the time.Mind you our powder drivers never wanted to be home anyway,when we didn’t renew the contract one nameless driver asked Scmidts to route him away from GB for 5 weeks to stay on his truck.
It’s idiot proof
Lower both trailer legs before dropping trailer!
My two worst jobs ever come to mind with this thread.
A plastics factory in Sedgefield had a small yard and one silo inlet with a manifold at the otherside of the wall. But first you had to send a sample down a separate pipe to the lab. This was about a tonne of product and they then made up a batch and tested it, if it passed, you were then allowed to tip into the main silo.
The testing could take about 3 hours and if it failed they would want another monster. I have sat there for about 10 hours waiting for a good sample to be tested, then you have to move across the yard and couple up the the main silo. The strangest thing is you never saw anyone, it was all done on bells and sirens, when they were ready, they rang their bell, when you had to stop, they used a siren.
The next one was in Ilkeston and we were tipping salt, which is very heavy, yet you were only allowed to use 10psi to tip, they were filling sacks and carboys direct from the tanker.
Otherwise I loved my bulk powder tanks almost as much as liquid tankers.