Tank Inspections

Heating Oil Aboveground Storage Tank (AST) Inspections are typically required during real estate transactions, for a CO (Tank Certificate of Occupancy) or insurance or mortgage request.   When you think of a tank you think just a tank, but a tank is actually a system, which includes ports for filing and venting the tank, lines for supplying fuel to  a furnace, some systems have a containment system and lastly the legs or foundation of the tank that lift the tank off the ground.

Can we agree things are not made like they were in the past.  The thickness of the metal of this 15 year old tank is not much thicker than a quarter.

Oil storage tanks age and pose a liability as the tanks can fail costing tens of thousands of dollars if not more in environmental cleanup.

80% of tanks in use today are out of warranty and pose a risk of failure. 

Many tanks are leaking which starts as a drip and can go unnoticed by the tank owner. 

Yes, even AST's can leak starting with a drip that is not noticed by the owner.   But eventually the hole gets bigger and swish, oil everywhere.

Commercial tanks have leak alarms, homeowners do not due to the expense. Let's agree we would all love to have an alarm or reminder when something is broken or about to break.    Oil tanks would not be a concern if you were informed that EMMINENT FAILURE is approaching?   You hopefully have a smoke alarm in your house, but not an oil tank alarm. 

Any part of the tank system can fail with age

The photo below shows a rusty leg that failed on an otherwise sound tank, the leg failed the tank dropped and leaked oil, which flowed into a sump pump which discharged oil into a yard and then flowed into a stream. 

Is a professional evaluation of an Aboveground Tank prudent?

Absolutely, we see issues all the time with tanks.  When a water heater breaks, you either have no hot water or water all over the basement.  When an oil tank leaks you get oil all over the floor and a bill expense to cleanup. much more expensive then a water heater leak.  Knowing that a water heat lasy on average 16 years why use a tank that is old and out of warranty.

The average heating oil tank has a 10 to 20 year warranty.   

All metal is subject to rust, which can cause failure of a vessel or tank.  Water Heaters fail and water will flood your basement.  Heating Oil Aboveground Storage Tanks (ASTs) will fail, and oil will impact the environment.   We have seen both indoor and outdoor heating Oil AST fail.   When this occurs and the oil migrates into soils, you now have government spill reporting and typically cleanup of the spill.

AST Inspections

We do thousands of specialized environmental inspections every year.  Curren strives to meet the objectives of each inspection so having a clearly defined goal is important.  While each inspection may have the same or similar name the party requiring it may have their own definition of what is needed.  For example, what the SBA may require can be different than the bank around the corner.   Different insurance companies have different requirements. 

The bottom-line theme is an entity wants to protect the financial interests in a property, having an AST leak a hundred gallons into the environment could cost $40,000 to remediate.

For all inspections will supply a qualified project manager so there is a single point of contact, no he said she said.  We arrange a site visit and also gather all pertinent background information, long story short we like things in writing, so if a request is made for an inspection, we want to see the request in writing.  Again, no he said she said.  This sounds like a no brainer, but we also ask and ensure that the area to be inspected is accessible and inspect able so to speak.

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