OT(with metal content) fuel oil tank

Your approach sounds good, but from personal, anectodal experience, even those tanks that pass such a test have shown some level of leakage over the years. I would consider trying to make the seller remove it as a condition of the sale, without spending the 500 - or simply offering the 500 to the seller to help pay for the removal.

One reason I liked the house I purchased was, they put the fuel oil tank in the old coal bin in the basement. Takes up room but then the property never did have any underground tank.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

What are the laws in your area if the tank has leaked already? I would be concerned that you could be buying yourself a mini EPA hazardous waste problem that could cost thousands to clean up. I would persuade the current owner to take the responsibility to remove the tank BEFORE you buy the home. Make it part of the deal, you will buy the home after the tank is removed, and all is well. If you wait to remove the tank until after you have possession of the property, have fun trying to get the previous owner to pay for it! Greg

Friend of mine bought a property in Michigan a few years ago. Turned out to have been a gas station at one time. 2 or 3 large tanks in the ground. All leaking. The cost to clean it up was about 500k. He just walked away.

Around here is is acceptable practice to fill the tank with sand and just leave it in the ground. I've personally known several people who have done just that. Nobody comes testing for leaks. Maybe you're being a little too cautious?

Grant Erw> Time to troll for experience. I'm looking to buy a house that has a 1000 gal

(Note: Southern CA resident that doesn't use oil heat.)

With all the liabilities of an old single-wall underground tank, I'd have it removed and mitigated before the sale, so there is no way you can get nailed for owning (even for a few days) a potential Superfund site. Ask any company that owned a tiny bit of Asbestos liability from 50 years ago...

When you move in, either install a new fiberglass double-wall underground tank with a leak monitor system, or an inside tank in the old garage or basement as a temporary until you build the new workshop.

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Andrew; I've had a bit of experience with metal tanks. If its a single wall black painted tank, IT IS, OR WILL LEAK. Looking at your address, I assume you are in NYS Albany area, the tank was probably made by Mohawk Metals in Frankfort or Lancaster Tank. Mohawk is now doing business under Craig Corp in Utica and Lancaster is still in business If its a STI tank it may still be warranted. Look on the Steel Tank Institute's website

they have a lot of information on what is what with steel tanks. gary

The commercial tank tightness tests I've witnessed involve filling the whole tank and lines. Then they monitor the level and check it against a value calculated with a laptop which takes expansion, etc., into account.

Too cautious? Perhaps, but lets say that one day the EPA comes up and makes you remove all tanks regardless if they are filled or still being used. Look at gas stations, they all need double walled tanks now, it put allot of people out of business. I for one would not buy a property that had and underground tank, regardless of its condition, unless it was a new double wall tank. The laws in some areas are already very picky in tank removal. It can cost thousands to remove a tank even if it is still in good shape. If it has leaked? I don't even want to think about it! Greg

About five years ago, a service station was "closed for renovations." The renovations went to ground level and the site sat for a year till the environment people stepped in. They hauled material out and in for about eighteen months pefore they paved it over for additional parking space for the adjacent plaza. Another station site has had the top fifteen feet of soil turned over about three times over the past four years - I suppose to evaporate any volatiles. Ten years ago I was involved in an underground tank inventrory on federally owned airports. On one former air base I turned up tanks that had been in the ground for fifty years, some long forgotten, some still in use even though there was water infiltration due to high ground water. Things have changed a lot in twenty years when the contract specs called for underground fuel tanks to be filled with sand. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

That may be true in the small corner of the world you live in. However, try to get homeowners insurance on a home with oil heat and an underground steel fuel tank. In Ontario it is impossible.

Or a bank loan. It has happened where a bank refused financing until a tank was removed. Smart move for the bank. You buy a home, tank takes a dump. You can not afford to fix it, so you walk and stick the bank with the mess. Sure, maybe EPA does not regulate home heating oil tanks, today anyway, but let that tank leak and see who the first phone call goes to! Many places they are regulated by state and county with stiff laws on removal and clean up. It has happened where a county has forced a home owner to do a major clean up on a tank that was leaking for years. We had a cleaner in out city that has been in business for decades. Years back there was little requirements for chemical disposal so chemicals got dumped out the back door. Today the place is a EPA super fund site. Tomorrow that leaking underground tank my be the next site the EPA is investigating. I would remove it know while it is cheap to do so. No telling what the regulations will be in 5 or 10 years! Do a goggle search for underground fuel oil tank leaks, and read! One site had stated the average cost for clean up of a leaking home fuel oil tank was $150,000 - $200,000! This information was based on actual data, just not someone's best guess! Greg

My small corner of the world is New York City, if you want to call that small. The posts refered to the EPA, meaning the US EPA. They did not refer to Canada or any other county. I think Canada has an agency called "Environment Canada" and a Minister of the Environment, so the posts don't apply to you. I don't know Canadian reg's and really don't care.

You can call the EPA if you want to, but they will refer the call to your state/local agency.

I'm not arguing whether or not a leaking tank will have to be remediated, but I am disputing what keeps getting repeated, in error. The US EPA does not get involved with heating oil spills or leaks, especially on the residential level. That is a matter of local or state agencies. People with little experience in oil spill remediation like to use impressive sounding items like "EPA" when they don't have a clue as to what their talking about.

A perc spill or leak, or other chemicals, are not heating oil. And dumping chemicals "out the back door" has no correlation to heating oil tanks.

A $200,000 average oil spill cleanup sounds gas utility scare tactics. I did a google search as you suggested and did not find what you are claiming.

However, a major national study has found that less than 1/4 of 1% of buried heating oil tanks are found to be leaking. Additionally, there are no Federal or State regulations that require buried oil tanks to be removed if there is no leak.

That figure doesn't surprise me at all. I was involved in a spill where a contractor dumped perhaps 10 gallons of gasoline on the ground at my place of business. The spill was cleaned up the next day, so the dispersal was minimal. It still involved removing and replacing around 100 yards of soil. Being gasoline (volatile) the DEP allowed the contaminated soil to be spread in a gravel bit to evaporate. I doubt that would be acceptable in many places these days.

If the spill had been diesel or fuel oil the soil would have been trucked to a secure landfill, at least 65 miles away. The price per yard for disposal at the landfill was substantial.

So imagine an underground tank leaking hundreds of gallons over several years in porous soils. $200,000 isn't hard to believe.

Not so. Plain steel and asphalt coated steel tanks were required to be removed here in Maine by 1997. Maybe Maine is unique in this, but I doubt it.

************************2. All bare steel and asphalt coated steel tanks or piping must be removed by October 1, 1997*, in accordance with 38 M.R.S.A. § 563-A. Tanks constructed of fiberglass, cathodically protected steel, or other non-corrosive material approved by the Commissioner are not subject to this schedule.

***********************

Ned Simmons

Maine is the only exeception.

I've seen cleanups first hand from leaking tanks, i've never seen a $200,00 residential cleanup, even in NYC prices. Basically, you need a backhoe to remove the contaminated dirt, along with the tank. The dirt is carted off or it can be recycled on site. Some contractors have a machine that burns the dirt, which burns off the oil, and the cleaned dirt is backfilled.

Of course you have the costs for the new tank, along with shrubs/landscaping/trees that need replacing.

That's what happens when builders try to install oil heat systems.

When I run buried fuel lines, I run the supply and return in 2" PVC, which starts with a no-hub coupling on the double tap tank bushing and it terminates inside the basement through the foundation. The oil-lines stay protected from damage inside the PVC, and in the event the line pulls high vacuum, it is feasible to pull a replacement line through the PVC without digging everything up, provided there are no sharp bends.

A copper oil line encased in concrete is a bad idea, as the slab settles or cracks the line will be stressed, and either break or collapse.

Seems like Maine has codifed good installation practice.

Unless the tank is above the burner, as it often is, then gravity will take over and you have a leak! Greg

Tony:

What you say makes perfect sense. Except to Maine, that is. Even single line buried systems must be replaced.

John Martin

Buried tanks lines are run from the top of the tank, and then usually continue upwards to the house foundation, then run down in the basement to the burner. Unless your oil tank is up on a mountain, and your house in on the bottom of the hill., the leakage from a small break in a line on a single pipe system from siphon effect, while the burner is off, would be minimal. I think the homeowner would experience burner shutdown due to air bound fuel pump, or high vacuum condition. The frequent shutdowns and resultant service calls would prompt the repair company to run a new line.