What is the best way to properly abandon my residential underground storage tank (UST)?

Question

We are buying a home with a heating oil UST of questionable history. We know that the home has not been heated with oil since 1999, when former owners installed central air. Efforts to find or get in touch with those owners to find out what was done have been fruitless. The town building official told me to make sure it was pumped dry, fill it with sand, cut off the fill pipe below ground so that it will never be seen again. I don't have the means to pump oil, don't know how to get hundreds (or thousands?) of gallons of sand, and don't even know if cutting the top off an oil pipe with a reciprocating saw is safe (sparks?). Give a man some practical answers please. And don't tell me to call a gov't agency or a contractor, which will result in a runaround or unecessary expense for a job I could probably do myself.

Answer 1

First thing is first, stick the tank to find out how much oil is in it, if it is underground it is probably a 500 or 1000 gallon tank, if it is a 275, then you have a problem because they are not designed to be burried and probably has leaked over time. But anyway, if you know the size of your tank, for a 500 gallon tank every inch of oil is about 15 gallons for a thousand gallon it is about 30 so figure out how much you have, if you have 50 or less pump it yourself get yourself some 5 gallon containers with lids, even spackle buckets work, you can use anything to pump the oil out hand pump battery power, electric, gas or what have you, more than 50 gallons get a company to come pump it out for you unless you don't mind the time and the mess, and making several trips to a recycling facility, You could also advertise the oil if you ahve a good amount of it, if you have more than 50 gallons and are in our area we will come pump it for free, many companys that have a use for it such as construction companies, will do this for you, put it in the paper however many gallons of oil you have someone will come to get it.
As for the sand you can't just try to funnel it in through the fill nozzle, this will not work, you ahve to dig up the tank so you can see the surface of it, get 10lbs of dry ice put that into the tank through the fill port, then using and angle grinder cut at least a 1x1 hole in the tank, rember wait a couple of minutes after teh dry ice is in the tank before cutting, despite what people tell you about fuel oil not being explosive, they are crazy or stupid, we had a guy very badly burned from not filling the tank with some type of inert gas,
Now do not waste your time going to home depot and buying bags of sand you will make 20 trips, and will not have the tank filled, call the local quarry or supply yard in your area and order 5 tons of sand. get tehm to dump the sand as close to the tank as possible, then fill it up cut your fill tubes off and your all set,
it is a lot of work and will cost you a few hundred or more to do it, but we get around $1500 to rip the tank out, and fill the hole.

good luck

Answer 2

OK, strap yourself in... This really is not too difficult, just going to take time.. The guy is right but here's the part you are looking for..
First try calling a couple of places that deliver heating oil.. You might get lucky enough to have one of them come in the off season to pump it out.. If you do get one, they will probably charge you a chunk but it will be quick and otherwise painless..
To pump the oil, you can use a garden hose and a drill powered pump adapter. You can get them at a DIY store. The fit into the chuck of the drill and have threaded openings for the in and out. You will probably want to get a cheap hose that you will cut and add another female end to so you can direct the output. This set up will cost you less than $25.
The catch is putting the oil in something that you can carry and take down to the local oil recycling place either supported by the county/city or some of the oil change places will take it.
Residential tanks are ordinarily in the couple hundred gallon range.. Size depends upon how long and cold winters are in your area.. I'll bet you the last user drained most of the oil out by using it before they installed the new system.. (Wouldn't you...)
The sand is also pretty straight forward. You can either buy it by the bag at the DIY store or have someone truck in a load for you and go that route.. The volume of the tank can be guessed. If you assume a 200 gal tank, then the volume is approximately 27 cubic feet / 3 cubic yards of sand. The bag should tell you how much volume it handles and you can order the sand by cubic yard from a landscape place by the cubic yard. You can create a makeshift funnel out of cardboard and duct tape.
For the pipe, oil does not cause vapors to the same degree as gas. It is less volatile and less flammable. Once you have drains the oil and filled it with sand it is extremely improbable that something will ignite and if it does, there would only be the residual oil on the pipe that you are cutting that would burn prior to hitting dirt or sand so most likely the worst you would get is some oily smelling vapors.

Dig the pipe down at least 6 inches better to go 8-12, cut it, top the tank with sand, cover it and you are done.

Answer 3

Yeah, I'll admit I'm a bit at a loss on your question. However, you may want to look around to see if anyone might BUY the oil from you, assuming it is still viable?

As far as sand goes, find a local gravel pit.

Cutting a pipe...? Yeah, most people don't let me play with sharp tools, so I'm no help here.

Best of luck!

Answer 4

So you don't want a contractor to do it ?

Get a pump, get a storage tank pump the oil into the tank, then you figure out what to do with the tank of oil in your driveway.

Answer 5

Local Oil Delivery Company will come out and give you a price to do it. They will discuss your options, leaving the tank, filling it, etc. They will also pump out and take away any oil in it. This is beyond your capabilities because this is considered Hazardous Waste, if you make a mess it will cost you your house to clean it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Think hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the spill size. Digging up all the contaminated dirt, hauling it to the closest Hazardous Waste approved landfill, bringing in new dirt, etc, etc, etc!