Back in February, I mentioned that we’d been the victims of heating oil theft with 500 litres siphoned off.
Oil prices have soared even further since then and so have instances of fuel theft, to the extent that the mainstream media has finally noticed.
The BBC today reported that more than £1,000 of fuel had been siphoned from a house at Auchterarder and an industrial unit at industrial unit in Alloa.
It also said police had advised people to keep their fuel secure but, as we were told when our oil was stolen, having fuel under lock and key does not stop the thieves.
If you padlock the tank hatches shut, the thieves use hole saws to cut through the tank walls, drop a hose in and then pump the fuel out to a van with a large tank in the back.
Once the fuel is in their tank, there’s nothing that can be done to trace it back to the original owner.
With fuel prices continuing to soar, the problem is only going to get worse, just as metal thefts are rocketing on the back of soaring metal prices.
I’m going to see if I can move our tank inside the steading without running afoul of planning regulations, but there’s little more than we can do except to remain vigilant at all times.
It”s becoming epidemic over here. I wrote a piece about it a while back, but with heating oil at €1 a litre it just gets worst. Our tanks are in garages, which helps, but so many people just have them sitting outside.
Of course the other thing that is happening is more and more people are risking astounding fines by running their cars on heating oil - red deisel - rather than paying €1,40 for the real deal.
A thriving industry has also sprung up removing the dye from heating oil (easier than you might first imagine…) in order to fool the douanes.
There’s a thriving ‘industry’ for metal thieves here - many many houses in our neighbourhood have been targeted, having the leading stripped off the roofs - often in broad daylight! One of our neighbours saw them at it but they finished what they were doing and ran off within the space of a minute.
Yes your tank is little exposed where it is. Mine is not so but even so I am considering putting shrubbery (sounds like a Monty Python sketch) to hide it and match in with the rest of the land there.
I have looked this up before now. However, I’ve only dealt with new tanks already involved with a warrant, so I don’t know if you’d need one to move your existing tank.
I can email my notesif you like.
http://www.dieseldye.com/fuel_theft_solutions.asp
Another solution that would take a wee bit of time and money would be to stuff your tank full mesh. this is done in race car fuel tanks to prevent sloshing as a side effect you can’t syphon off anything as you can’t get past the foam/mesh with a pipe.
just need to think of a suitable material for a tank that is safe in fuel, strong enough to divert a suction hose but does not displace too much in the way of space.
Ping pong balls with holes in them? or those plastic mesh balls that were about golfball sized?
The stuff they fill scrubber towers with would be bloody perfect
If i find a source for them i shall let you know