# Why are oil tanks painted silver?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-oil-tanks-painted-silver/524095>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 7, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-oil-tanks-painted-silver/524095 "2010-01-07T23:40:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Woot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@Woot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woot)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-oil-tanks-painted-silver/524095/1 "2010-01-07T23:40:07Z")

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Is it to reflect heat, or what?!

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**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-oil-tanks-painted-silver/524095/2 "2010-01-07T23:50:25Z")

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> [@Woot](#):
>
> Is it to reflect heat, or what?!

That’s what I was told. Since there are so many flammable liquids and vapors around, you don’t want it to get too hot either inside the tanks or on the outside surface. I have seem some painted white or tan, but never anything dark.

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**Author:** ![Woot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@Woot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woot)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-oil-tanks-painted-silver/524095/3 "2010-01-07T23:54:25Z")

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Alright, that makes sense. Thank you, very much.

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**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2010, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-oil-tanks-painted-silver/524095/4 "2010-01-07T23:56:49Z")

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> [@dracoi](#):
>
> That’s what I was told. Since there are so many flammable liquids and vapors around, you don’t want it to get too hot either inside the tanks or on the outside surface. I have seem some painted white or tan, but never anything dark.

This makes a lot of sense, especially considering that I can remember coal gas tanks, before natural gas was piped to my hometown, which were painted black or extremely dark green – getting solar assist for the heat used to drive off gas from (bituminous) coal especially during the winter months was presumably useful.

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**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2010, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-oil-tanks-painted-silver/524095/5 "2010-01-08T00:56:16Z")

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A lot of propane tanks are silver too, sometimes they are called silver bullets.