Around here, any time it rains, gas stations put rubber mats over the places where the truck refills the underground tank. Are you telling me that these things aren’t designed to be waterproof in the first place? What is up with that? Doesn’t seem like a real great system for keeping water out of the tanks!
Have you asked someone at the stations WHY they do this? My guess (only a guess) is the the mats are not there to keep water out, but to keep someone from slipping and falling on the metal covers themselves. Throw some water on a manhole cover and it can be pretty slippery. Probably someone once fell and sued somebody, thus the preventative step of throwing a rubber mat over them.
Just a thought.
Actually that sounds like a good possibility, though the tanks do have a non-skid pattern molded onto the covers. Maybe this is another thing we can thank the tort lawyers for…
That’s the access cover, and not the tank fill connector. It’s not water proof and nobody wants the cavity with the connector filling with water that has to drain through the ground before you can fill the tank. A little water in there and you’re alright. Around here they have been changing all the access covers to ones that are about 6 inches higher than the paved area to reduce the amount of water that gets into the cavity below the covers during hard rains.
The fill tubes are waterproof. When they fill the tanks in the rain, they don’t worry about a few drops getting in. All the pumps have tremendous filters that catch water, except the alcohol in the fuel now absorbs water like the old “dry gas” people used to buy. Actually, people still do purchase and use “Dry Gas” even though all their fuel is 10% alcohol (dry gas) to begin with.
[Moderator Note]
Please refrain from professional jabs in GQ. No warning issued.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Where are you located? If it doesn’t rain a lot then when it does rain it becomes slippery where stuff gets spilled. So it could be that it becomes really slippery because of the metal and spilled gas and oil in the area. This can be really bad for motorcyclists as well as people walking.