This is why you do not let your “friend” or unlicensed people remove your tank.
Oil Tank Horror Story
So what happens when you let your friend try to remove your oil tank instead of calling GreenTRAX…?
Not much… They just:
- cut one of the legs off
- try to lift the tank full
- aaaaaand turn it over and spill 200 gallons of oil in your storage area attached to your house…
…Long pause…
As long as you like living with the smell of oil in your house, no big deal right? (we’re just kidding about that last part, you should NEVER continue to stay in a house with a strong smell of oil).
This is an actual scenario that happened to one of our customers and GreenTRAX was called to fix the problem. Worse yet, the house was for sale and people were coming to look at the house. That doesn’t work well, does it? An overturned tank in your shed… that is still leaking… 200 gallons of oil onto the floor stinking up the entire area. Doesn’t make for a great impression for potential buyers, huh?
A Solution – Professional Oil Tank Removal
People, there are some things homeowners can do themselves – minor plumbing repairs, landscaping and yard work, paint and drywall – but oil tank removals and installations are NEVER one of them.
There are many reasons why you shouldn’t do it yourself or hire just anyone who says they can “do it”.
The biggest problem is the oil. You may be able to move an empty tank, but no one knows what to do with it or how to handle it properly and safely.
It’s not a lot of money; just call GreenTRAX and let us handle the whole thing for you.
Cue GreenTRAX – The Professional Oil Tank Removal Experts
In the job pictured above, what could have cost the owner a few hundreds dollars to have GreenTRAX deal with the whole job in the first place now ended up costing thousands upon thousands of dollars to perform the cleanup and remediation. The tank had to be pumped out and removed on an emergency basis so that was done the same-day. Then the cleanup and soil remediation had to be initiated within a couple of days to minimize the oil soaking into the soil and spreading.
This spill was located in an exterior storage shed but it was attached to the house, right next to the basement. Luckily, the oil didn’t make it to the basement. Otherwise, the situation would have been a lot more expensive and would have delayed the sale of the home.
This exterior storage area was part dirt and part concrete. GreenTRAX had to break up all of the concrete in the shed and remove all of that, then excavate out the contaminated dirt down to a depth of 3 feet and haul all of that away. All of that had to be removed with shovels, buckets and wheelbarrows. Then we had to import clean backfill dirt and again move it with wheelbarrows and put it all back by hand. Needless to say, this was not a super quick process, but GreenTRAX does this kind of thing all of the time.
Always Call an Expert
When you call someone who may be very cheap to do your aboveground tank removal, you could be left with a big mess! There have been many jobs we have had to go in after people who gave the owner a cheap price, but then really didn’t do anything.
(More) Oil Tank Horror Stories
(What Happens When you Don’t Use a Professional Oil Tank Removal Service)
One guy used a shop vac to suck oil out of someone’s basement tank, spilled oil all over the place and left the oil in trash cans on the customers basement floor. Then they took the tank and left.
Another job we saw was a guy pumped the outside tank out into (25) 5-gallon buckets and left all of it in the driveway.
Then we had one where some guys transferred all of the oil from the customers garage tank into plastic totes, spilled oil all over the garage floor, and the customer kicked them off the job and called us.
What about when the customer had someone (not a tank professional) remove their tank and leave the fill and vent pipes sticking out of the basement wall. The owner didn’t tell the oil company so they came the next day to fill the tank (that is no longer there!) and pumped a few hundred gallons of oil into the basement!!!
That’s when you have to move out of the house because it’s so bad!
Moral of the story is – DO NOT CALL A SCRAP GUY OR JUNK GUY TO TAKE YOUR OIL TANK!!!! They have no clue how to remove an oil tank properly.
The tank is basically worthless for scrap; you might get enough money to buy lunch at a fast food place, maybe, but the tank has to be cleaned out first! And what are you going to do with all of the sludge in the bottom of the tank? You can’t dump it down the drain; you can’t dump it in your yard; and you can’t take it to the local landfill.
Just Call Greentrax and Save Yourself Time
We specialize in;
- residential underground and aboveground heating oil tank and gasoline tank removals
- installations
- tank investigations
- soil testing
- soil remediation
- tank pumping
- cleanups
- anything related to heating oil tanks
The owner is a second generation oil tank remover and our company/family has been in the tank business for almost 30 years. We service most of Maryland but most of our work comes from these counties:
- Anne Arundel
- Montgomery
- Baltimore
- Howard
- Prince George’s
- Calvert
- Harford
- Carroll
Do not trust your job to just anyone.
Call the best – GreenTRAX, Inc. 410-439-1085
