Leaking oil tank supply lines?

And now I'm supposed to worry, not only about underground oil tanks, but the material of which the lines connecting them to the furnace are made?

It makes sense.  A property my clients are buying had a search for an underground tank done by the folks at Eco-Tech LLC. As with most every inspection anywhere, I always learn something. 

We know this house had an oil storage tank in the basement as the sellers took it out and provided us pictures.  But I thought it would be prudent (and so did my clients) to be sure  there wasn't another tank buried in the yard somewhere.  We certainly wouldn't want their future buyers, twenty years from now, finding a leaky tank.

Oil tanks were connected to the furnace via fuel lines to carry the oil.  Most often, we see evidence of this; usually copper lines coming up put of the floor, or maybe through the foundation wall.  Professional decommission jobs will leave the fill lines as past evidence that a tank existed.  You aren't supposed to remove ALL evidence of the tank as it is important for future owners to know a tank had been there.

Sometimes, oil lines were made of...galvanized metal.  Which rusts.  And can rust through when in moist conditions, like buried in soil and concrete in Portland, Oregon.

I had never really thought about this before.  And if I had, I'd most likely think of the of copper lines, which didn't have near the risk of rusting through.  But today, we saw the thicker and bigger, obviously galvanized line.  Which led the tech to educate me.  Apparently, Eco-Tech has done a clean up or two of leaks caused by the lines. 

Ack!  None of us have been worrying about lines.  Does this mean samples need to be taken along the buried line?  All the way?  For oil tanks themselves, samples are usually taken at each end of the tank, as failure most often is at the welded seams on the tank ends. 

This new "worry" isn't just new to me.  Eco-Tech is only now starting to learn the extent of this.  I expect we'll see DEQ put out some new rules and procedures to help clarify the issue.  Along with that,  perhaps testing and decommission protocol may now extend also to the supply lines.  In the meantime, we'll be glad most tanks had copper lines.

If you have a question about buried oil tanks, or any thing else related to real estate, give me a call.  503-312-8038