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Oil tank removal

lchmb
lchmb Member Posts: 2,997
in THE MAIN WALL
Why wouldn't you? Even if the tank is pumped out, there will alway's be some left which leave's for the possiblity of a leak. Plus the space wasted. Just make sure when the tank is removed that the fill and vent are removed and sealed. Then again, if the tank isn't removed I would still remove the fill and vent and plug the tank in the basement to make sure a wrong delivery is not made...IMHO

Comments

  • Wild Rover
    Wild Rover Member Posts: 41
    Oil tank removal

    Is a homeowner required to remove the existing oil tank in the house when converting from oil to gas in Massachusetts?
  • ed wallace
    ed wallace Member Posts: 1,613
    oil tank removal

    I believe you have up to 2 yrs to remove tank have seen plenty of homes that have old tanks still in the basement 10 yrs after the conversion
  • Robert O'Brien
    Robert O'Brien Member Posts: 3,562
    This

    will be a very popular question in the next year!

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  • Dan_29
    Dan_29 Member Posts: 111


    I am not aware if this is code in Ma.yet. Nevertheless, if you want to sell your house in the future, you should have it removed. Most mortgage lenders are making removal of an unused oil tank a condition of sale. In other words, you cannnot receive your sale proceeds unless the tank is removed. Far too many banks have been caught owning a house, through foreclosure, with oil seeping out on an unused tank into the soil beneath the basement floor.

    I was involved in a foreclosure resale, a few years ago, in which the bank had to spend $50,000 excavating half the basement floor in a threedecker house to a level of six feet by pick, shovel and wheelbarrow. The house had to be supported by temporary steel girders, as the digging was close to the foundation walls of the house. This job cost the bank more than they made on the resale. If the bank did nothing the house was not financeable, insurable and might have ended up on a government superfund cleanup list in which the state or the feds come after you for their inflated costs of cleanup. Municipal building code fines were trivial by comparison.

    I suspect the few hundred dollars it will cost you to pump out the remaining oil, sawzall the tank into smaller pieces and truck it away, will be money well spent.

    Dan R.
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