Water Tankers

Drinking water isn’t just delivered in bottles.  Most drinking water companies now employ fleets of water tankers:  bulk water supplies deliverers ranging in size from a 10,000 litre capacity to a huge 26,000 litres.

Water tankers can be used to transport bulk water supplies to clients who regularly need large quantities of safe drinking water delivered to their premises.  Often, water tankers fill up direct from UK water providers’ sites:  which means water tankers can make continuous round trips to use-heavy customers.  Water tankers using utilities companies’ reservoirs to refill are back on the road quicker than water tankers that need to use secondary locations – water supply concerns like Water Direct, who have several working contacts with UK utilities providers, are able to maintain a steady supply of drinking water in this way, up to significant volumes.

Filling water tankers direct from the source also ensures that the product is of the highest quality.  Utilities providers, naturally, are regulated by stringent safety requirements:  transferring water direct from their stocks into water tankers allows drinking water companies to ensure that their fleet stock is of the same class.  Water tankers that fill straight from source are also filling with a product that hasn’t been exposed to the contaminant risks involved in bottling and packaging – customers who use water tankers rather than bottled delivery are presumably less likely to receive poor consignments.

Water tankers have been designed with potential access difficulties in mind, as well as capacity for bulk water delivery.  Giant 26,000 litre articulated water tankers don’t do so well in rural areas or hard-to-reach access roads.  Small rigid water tankers (general capacity 10,000 litres, about the same size as a small truck) have high manoeuvrability, while still carrying enough water to ensure bulk dispatch; medium-sized rigid water tankers (capacity usually 15,000 litres) are perfectly capable of navigating normal residential streets, festival sites and construction areas.  For bulk water deliveries to really challenging places, providers will deploy either customised 4x4 small rigid water tankers, or, in extreme circumstances, jerry-built water bowsers (water bowsers are effectively small, cabless water tankers towed by all-terrain vehicles).