Separating five 100 gallon black plastic totes stuck together

Any ideas on how to separate these? They are stuck together.

My thoughts. Use wooden wedges to separate the bottom one while having them suspended  in the air. Let gravity and the wedges work for me. I am tryin to figure out how to suppers them.

Hello Martin,

I am just spitballing here, but two thoughts come to mind.  First, is there any chance you could force water in between the totes?  The thought is that if you could get some water started, maybe you could use the water to hydraulically jack the layers apart.  Also, if the layers are stuck by friction, the water might lubricate the sides and reduce friction.  The downside is that you might make a perfect water seal that might be very hard to break.

My second thought is that you might be able to drill a tiny hole in the bottom.  If these are stuck together by vacuum pressure, then drilling a hole might release the pressure.

If you have enough wedges, try to wedge around all 4 sides, but wedge one side a bit more than the others.  This might help break the vacuum seal.

These are just a few thoughts,  good luck,

Eric

If you can pry up the lip and get a compressed air nozzle in there, you might have success.

You could also try ice/dry ice in the top one to try to shrink it enough, maybe in concert with them in a pool of hot water.

Edit:  Actually, just leave them in the sun, then dump ice into the top one to shrink it.  R&R!

I'd start by putting the stack upside down in the sun so the upper most one get hot and hopefully expands a bit.  Then use a wedge on one corner between the lip of the top two to break the seal and get the top one lifting up.  Then repeat as soon as the next one heats up enough.

all that was required was a crowbar and 2 people. could have been down with one person. I will post pictures in a different thread when the project is finished. basically I want to do BLSL, duck weed and earth worms to feed chickens. I do farmers markets and I am friend with someone who owns a farm. there is a meat market that cuts off a lot of fat. they give me the fat for free.

this is what I got for free. I have a total of 6. 5 in the system that I want to build

https://heavygardens.com/active-aqua-100-gal-reservoir-53-x53-x13.html?fee=15&fep=8402&utm_source=google-feed&utm_medium=shopping%20feed&utm_campaign=SCFeed&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&adpos=1o2&scid=scplpHGRES100B&sc_intid=HGRES100B&gclid=CjwKCAjw8LTmBRBCEiwAbhh-6CKa5I8t1nyjStl_1Bor_7LQYSNarrAGEo9ltMeqEKASHfgOFO9qRRoC9JQQAvD_BwE

Mike beat me to it. I've done exactly that and it works. Just a few minutes in the Sun on one side then turn, then lift and right onto the next one. Don't let them sit too long or they all heat up. You only need to wiggle them back and forth a bit as you lift on the top one and they almost always separate. I have fools who will not learn not to stack the garbage cans together. So, more experience at this than I'd like to have.

On things that are really tough, you get two people to pull and one of them is holding an electric drill that has a small lump of wood taped to the side of the spinny part. So you get a very fast Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump that vibrates everything.

In the future, buckets or nesting containers of any sort, squeeze them with a ratcheting tie strap, once they start to mishape, it will break the vacuum holding them together. It has worked for me every single time.

Put a piece of cardboard around each side if stored in a dry environment.