Frac Tank Heating | Industrial Thermal Design

Why It Matters

Cold Contents Stop Production

Frac tanks store water-based fracturing fluid, produced water, or additives on active sites — often outdoors, often on a schedule that can't slip. When the contents get cold enough to freeze or thicken, flow stops, and every hour of downtime is lost production. A frac tank heating system exists to solve exactly one problem: keep the contents workable, regardless of what the weather is doing outside the tank.

Powerblanket's approach wraps the whole tank — sides, ends, and top — in a system of heated and insulated blankets, rather than relying on a single internal heating element. Spreading the heat across the entire surface means no single spot on the tank ever gets particularly hot, which matters when the contents or the tank itself can't tolerate concentrated heat.

Frac tanks show up in plenty of applications that have nothing to do with fracking. Water reclamation is a common one — dirty water from construction, manufacturing, or operations can't just go down a storm drain, and generally needs to be safely stored before disposal. Frac tanks are plentiful, standardized, and easy to rent, which is exactly why Powerblanket has built a heating solution for just about every shape and size on the market.

Anatomy

What's In a Frac Tank Heating System

Frac tank fully wrapped in a Powerblanket heating and insulation blanket system, with yellow access stairs

Ten Heated Side Blankets Five per side, connected with a pair of suspenders that hold them up, and overlapped along their vertical seams to fully enclose both long faces of the tank.
Two Insulated Curtains One per end, made up of several narrow insulated columns that hang down and route flexibly around discharge lines, ladders, and other protrusions on the tank ends.
Two Insulated Top Blankets Overlap all ten side blankets and both end curtains, meeting in the middle of the tank on top. This is usually where a standard rental tank becomes unique — but since the top is insulated only, with no heater to design around, it's quick to size and easy to modify in the field.
Long lower flaps Route to the ground and weight them down — an unweighted flap lets wind underneath the blanket and measurably hurts performance.

Continuous Maintain: Up to 50°F exposure ceiling on standard builds

Design Environment: -20°F min ambient, 25 mph wind, 0°F startup

Sizing: Built to your tank's exact length and model

Typical power requirements for a full 10-blanket set:

Voltage: 240V standard

Total Load: ~22,800 W, ~95 A across 10 blankets

Watt Density: 33 W/ft² standard design, up to 60 W/ft² where needed

Standard construction is black vinyl with 50 ft pig-tailed power cords. Higher power densities than shown above are possible but unusual. Exact model, overlap, and power requirements depend on your specific tank — a Powerblanket engineer confirms these during review.

Hazardous-location builds available — cETLus Class I, Division 2, Groups A-D, Temperature Class T4

Every blanket ships with a resistance-test procedure so you can verify it's undamaged before and after each season.

A Real Installation

Cold-Weather Freeze Protection at a Nuclear Research Site

One real, publicly-documented example of a frac tank heating system doing its job — not a hypothetical.

Case Study

URS Corporation, Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory

URS Corporation needed to keep groundwater collected in frac tanks from freezing during a deactivation and demolition project at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, NY. Powerblanket's custom design team delivered a frac tank heating system in time for winter — it installed quickly despite rainy weather and protected the contents from freezing throughout the project.

Powerblanket supplied the frac tank heating system currently working on-site. The heating system installed quickly despite rainy weather, and has protected the contents from freezing. Edward Skuchas, Engineer with URS

From the Field

Real Installations, Real Sites

$Installer securing a Powerblanket frac tank heating blanket in place on an active site$ $Detail of a frac tank heating blanket seam and overlap$

Still Have Questions?

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If you have additional questions after reading this guide, a real Powerblanket applications engineer will answer them personally — no pressure, no obligation.

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