Questions answered in this episode…

Transcription…

Narrator:

Welcome to Tank Talk with Teddy, a podcast talking all things related to residential oil tanks. You have questions? Teddy has answers.

Teddy:

Hello?

Andrew:

Hi. My name is Andrew. I got a question related to oil tin removal.

Teddy:

Sure, I can help you with that.

Andrew:

I hope you can help me that. So, the situation is that I’m going to buy a house with an underground oil tin. It’s a 550 gallon tin, which is under the front yard of the house. It was properly abandoned in 1996. My situation is down the seller of the house, where it fails to do anything. So, I have to take the risk to buy the house with the tin. But before I do that, I want to find out, is it any key cautions, any soil testing that I can do in the inspection period? So, I can at least have a better idea whether there’s an oil leak or whether there’s soil contamination around the tin. Is this something that’s possible or there’s no way to tell?

Teddy:

Absolutely. Yeah, I could definitely help you with this. So, I’ll explain typically how the industry works. For soil testing around a tank like this, basically they will send somebody out to do it by hand, and they bore down alongside the tank. But a lot of times they don’t get to the proper depth and they don’t ever back up the results with some kind of warranty or guarantee. So, for you as a buyer, if you were to pay somebody five or $600 and they gave you results with no guarantee, you are going to be liable for a potential cleanup in the future. So, that’s not going to work, right?

Teddy:

So we have a program where we can come in. We have a special machine called a geoprobe that probes around the side of the tank. I just pull a lever, so I know my guy is going to get to the proper depth. If we can prove that the soil around the tank is clean, we’re going to offer you an optional guarantee for that. It covers you for up to six months. So as long as you hire our company to pull that tank within six months, and if we find any contamination, it could be $50,000 worth of cleanup, you’re covered. We would cover it and clean it up for no additional cost to you, if you take the optional guarantee.

Andrew:

Okay, so the cleanup doesn’t mean that it’s over township and get the no follow up actions certificate?

Teddy:

Yes, that’s what I mean. So let’s say hypothetically, we test the tank next week. I tell you that the soil is clean. You say, great, I’m going to buy the house. Two months from now, you close on the house, you hire us to pull it. I come out and pull that tank out of the ground, and I find that it’s riddled with holes and there’s contamination directly under that tank that we missed. We would then have to get a case number from the DEP, we’d have to then clean up the soil and write a report to get you that no further action letter. That is going to be all included in your guaranteed price.

Andrew:

Okay. I see. So, that means it’s kind of an insurance. So maybe you charge a little bit more than the other company, but you guarantee that you take care of the pull up? [crosstalk 00:03:22]

Teddy:

Exactly. The first step is we charge $600 for the investigation. So, you’re going to have two outcomes. If you can picture that, you’ll have two outcomes on that initial test next week. One outcome, we’re going to find clean soil. I’ll come back to you. I’m going to send those samples to the lab, get lab results and give you those results and tell you that you’re all clear, you’re good to go. Okay, that’s one outcome.

Teddy:

The second outcome is that we find contamination. And when we’re out there that day, if we find contamination, we’re going to do what’s called a delineation. What that means, in layman’s terms, is we’re going to figure out how deep the contamination is, how far it traveled in each direction, and we’re going to give you a fixed price that you can then go to the seller to negotiate. We even have a program where… I’m going to throw numbers at you. Let’s just say it’s a $15,000 remediation. We could come in now, do the remediation at no cost to you or the seller, and the seller could pay us at closing, once we give him the clean bill of health.

Andrew:

Okay. I think that makes sense to me. I think that’s just more save approach. But do you mind just to expand a little bit, like soil contamination? I don’t think it’s like a zero and one thing. So, how do you consider the soil is contaminated? Is it really a black and white case or [inaudible 00:04:42] area?

Teddy:

It’s very black and white. It’s very obvious. So you, as a homeowner, a potential homeowner that has never seen an oil tank come out of the ground, you don’t need me or a township inspector to tell you it’s leaking. It’s very obvious. You can see the soil. It’s discolored. It’s got an odor to it. The tank is riddled of holes. It’s a very obvious thing. So, it’s a visual inspection, initially, that’s done, and then a sample is typically taken from the bottom of the excavation to determine what level the contamination’s at, okay? Because you are allowed to keep contamination in the ground, up to a certain level. And we would have to go through that process once the tank is out. But yeah, if you have the guarantee, you are completely covered, you have no additional worries, you have nothing else to worry about once you close on that property. You have no extra liability. You have nothing that’s going to pop out at you down the road that’s going to cost you a fortune.

Andrew:

Okay, got it. Do you mind if I ask two more questions?

Teddy:

Absolutely.

Andrew:

The first one is, based on your experience, if the tin is sealed properly, in 1996, what’s the chance to have an oil leak come from that tin?

Teddy:

Very high. And let me, [crosstalk 00:05:56]. Yeah, let me explain why it’s very high. Because in 1996, they decided to take that tank out of service. Most of the time, the people didn’t just decide on a whim that they didn’t like oil heat anymore, most of the time. Most of the time that that tank was taking on water, and the heating system wasn’t properly working, which means they had no heat. So what they did is they followed all the proper rules and regulations back then, they opened it up, and they threw sand in it. The problem is it wasn’t required to test the soil around the tank, so there’s no way to tell back in 96 that tank was actually leaking. So a lot of these previously filled tanks were actually leaking before they were filled in place. So, once we pull it, we’re going to find that out, or once we do our soil investigation, we’re going to know that.

Andrew:

Okay, I see. And another thing is that it looks like there’s a tree on top of the oil tin. Do you also take care of the tree removal or I need to find a different company to handle that?

Teddy:

It depends on the size of the tree, but when we come out to do our soil investigation, we’ll be able to let you know if we can handle it and how much it would cost or if it was too big and you had to hire someone else to remove it. When we do our soil investigation, we’re going to know the exact location of that tank, and we’ll let you know which landscaping will be impacted during the dig, and we’ll be able to give you a fixed number on what the cost would be to remove it and all that stuff at that time, and we’ll be able to tell you if we can handle the tree or not.

Andrew:

Okay. And I think you mentioned you have the tools to dig down into the ground to test the oil. What little bit, the impact… Is it just a small hole or there will be a big hole that you need to dig from the ground?

Teddy:

It’s a two inch piece of pipe that gets drilled in through the ground. So, it’s a two inch hole, and we fill the hole in when we’re done. So, when we leave initially during that investigation, you won’t even know we were there.

Andrew:

[inaudible 00:07:56]. Okay. I think that’s really helpful. Let me just talk to my real estate agent. I think most likely I will just call you back and arrange a visit to your house.

Teddy:

Okay, perfect. Yeah, call back and I can take your info, email you out a proposal. Everything we do is electronic. You would sign it electronically. We’ll call you for a 50% deposit, and then we’ll set you up on the schedule. And then when we come out, you pay the balance.

Andrew:

Okay. Sorry, just one more thing forget to ask. So $600 for the inspection, and we want to remove the oil tin, assume there’s no soil contamination. What’s the FH cost for that?

Teddy:

So, it’s about $1,500 typically, plus permits. And if the sand inside of it is contaminated, there’s typically a charge to dispose of that. If it was done in 96 with a permit, most likely that sand is going to be clean. I’m going to reuse that sand as fill material, so there’s no charge for that. But if it’s contaminated, there’ll be an additional fee. So, all that will be spelled out in the contract, if you decide to go forward with us on the guarantee, and that’ll be in the contract itself.

Andrew:

Okay. Sounds good. What’s the name?

Teddy:

My name is Teddy, T-E-D-D-Y, Slack, S-L-A-C-K, from Simple Tech.

Andrew:

Okay, understood. So if I call back, do I need to ask for you or I can just speak to somebody else?

Teddy:

If you want, what I could do is I could take your info right now, I’ll email you proposals in the next few minutes. And then if you decide that you want to move forward, all you have to do is literally open up the email and click approve and type in your name, and then we’ll get everything rolling from that point. Would you like to do that?

Andrew:

Yeah, sounds good. Let’s do it.

Teddy:

Okay, perfect. Look into your email inbox in the next few minutes. You’ll have it there. If you have any questions, my name is Teddy.

Andrew:

Okay. Thank you very much.

Teddy:

Thank you, sir. Bye-bye.

Andrew:

Okay, thank you. Bye-bye.