Transporting your Air Tanks in the U.S.

I will be traveling from Ontario , Canada by truck (my own personal vehicle) to North Carolina for some diving, in the next few weeks. I am wondering how the various states along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. regulate the transport of air tanks along their respective interstate highways.

As an example, I am pretty sure in Ontario, that you are required, if you have six or more tanks to transport, that you lay the tanks on their sides sideways in the vehicle, secure them to the vehicle, and put a placard on the outside of the vehicle that shows a stylized air tank on a rectangular background. Are there any such regulations in the U.S. concerning air tanks for SCUBA diving?

Oh, and BTW, Tanks a lot

If you empty them it shouldn't matter.

I have never heard of any restrictions or regulations as long as you are transporting a limited number of tanks, containing non-hazardous materials, for personal (non-commercial) use. Which would apply to your situation.

Somewhere I recall hearing a number of 1000lbs in weight as the number that is considered a limited number.

As high pressure could fall under hazardous materials consideration, I agree with Giles, if you transport them cross-country empty, there should be no issues.

Paul, the portion of US law that concerns you is Title 49 CFR Parts 100-185.

Placarding requirements are in place for comodities that are:

Hazardous

In transport

In commerce

Compressed Air certainly qualifies as hazardous, and is in fact a commodity listed under CFR 49. And you will certainly be transporting it. However, since it is your air and you're not paying someone to transport it, it is not in commerce.

Also, if all three conditions were met, you would still have to transporting more than 1000 lbs of commodity to have placarding be required (49 CFR 172.504), which with 6 tanks, you will not even be close.

The only issue might be from a highway patrolman with only a surface knowledge of the law; they might mis-quote the placard requirement for "bulk packaging" of 3,785 liters providing you have a set of doubles. 3,785 liters is really in reference to liquids. 49 CFR actually indicates that a cylinder with a water capacity of 1000 lbs is a bulk package for gasses, so you're well off the hook here.

Another sticking point could be mix; standard nitrox mixes and deco gasses are still above the 23.5% that's listed as the ceiling for air, and provided that you were above the 1000 lb threshold would be placarded as an Oxidizer. Heh. Not much chance of that for you.

So these are the laws. As a non-commercial transporter, with volumes well below the limits, feel free to drive about the US of A with full tanks, without any special legislated securing or placarding.

All the best, James

Oh yes! I'm sure you've done this, but make sure they have a DOT stamping on them if you want to get them filled here.

All the best, James

Why not just rent tanks in NC?

James

Thank you for pointing me in the right direction, as far as, the federal regulations are concerned. This is exactly what I was looking for. I do intend to secure the tanks to the truck bed so as not to have any heavy flying projectiles should an incident occur on the highways, even though I believe I'm not required to. Also, thanks for pointing out the requirement for all three conditions (Hazardous, In transport, and, In commerce) to be valid for the need for extra cautions such as placards, for me -- I probably would have missed it.

Our tanks up here have two stamps. One stamp for Transport Canada (TC) and also the DOT stamp that you mentioned, so we should be good to go.

Giles and loftus

Ideally this is the way I would like to transport them, however, it is a 14 hour drive to the charter operator. Due to time constraints for the other divers in the group, we may not be able to arrive in time for the charters and have our bottles filled. Hopefully this is not the case.

Jcclink

I had considered doing just that, but, to try and say it delicately...

I have at least one technical diver in my vehicle who happens to be an “avid dive equipment aficionadoâ€, who takes great pride in his equipment, and, who most likely will want to dive his own doubles. Hopefully this, also, is not the case.

Thanks again to everyone who replied.