Eureka! Eureka! Oil Tank Mystery Solved

Chaim posing with the oil vacuum truck

When we bought the house, we knew that we would have to decommission the buried oil tank in the side yard. The problem was that everyone we got estimates from (Oil company that used to deliver the fuel, to 3 different contractors) could tell us what size the tank was. The best guess was that it was either a 550 gallon or 1100 gallon tank. If it was a 1100 gal tank, that would mean a space the size of a small studio apartment was buried in the side yard.

The oil tank was the scariest unknown of our whole construction job. We had read and heard nightmares of people going bankrupt because of oil spills. Chaim told me that his brother-in-law's company had moved to Iowa because of a 250 million dollar law suit for contaminated soil in North Carolina. When we told one of Chaim's High School buddies named Captain Video, about the fear of oil in the ground, he came back with - "where did all the damn oil come from in the first place?"
hmmmmmmm, something to think about as we called the final company for an estimate.

Today two guys from Pro-Test, Andres and Tommy, the company we had hired for the soil test, came to cut and clean out the tank. Whew!

After they cut the top of the fill pipe in the front of the yard, the guys took a brand new tape measure and used it to see how far back the tank was buried in the yard. They stuck it into the hole just like putting a dipstick into a car to check the oil level. After pulling out an oily tape measure, they told me the tank was buried 26 feet back.

Next they dug up a 4x4 foot perfect square down to the top of the tank. Andres used a gasoline powered saw to cut this hole into the tank. Here is the cut hole with smoke coming out of it.



Then another company drove up, double parked in front and vacuumed the oil out of the hole.








Here is a view of the empty tank with the sludge at the bottom.

Yuck!

While the guys were occupied in their quadrant of the yard, Chaim took the opportunity to use their shovels to dig up the ivy roots.
At first we liked the look of ivy on the brick, giving it a nice collegiate feel. But later with our new home owner eyes, realized that the vines were not so good for the mortar on the brick and it was filled with bugs.
So a week ago we had cut the vines and they had all died, still clinging to the side of the building, and with every breeze, bringing a bit of fall early to 54th street, as brown leaves swirled about on the street. In one week, the hardy tough roots had began to sprout new ivy. So Chaim was determined not to have to keep battling with them. He was going to get to the root of the problem.
Tommy told Chaim at one point to go to their truck and get a tool called a mattock (similar to a pickaxe), to really do the job right. Here is a picture of Chaim with their array of orange painted tools battling it out with the tough roots.
After the tank was vacuumed out, Andres donned a Yellow suit and jumped into the hole to clean out the sludge. He told me that the tank was 4 feet in diameter but could not tell me how big it was until he was inside. As he was sludging out, I yelled down- "Well, how big is it?????"

In a resparator muffled voice he answered back-
"2000 gallons"

Holly crap!
Chaim and I looked at each other as dollar signs added up in our brains.

After about 10 minutes, Andres climbed out of the hole and said, "Just kidding, it's only a 550 gallon tank"

Ha Ha.

Now we have a 55 gallon drum of oil sludge sitting in the yard, to be picked up before next week. The guys filled in the hole and put a temporary PVC pipe from the tank so that in a week or so, another crew can come to fill the empty space with foam and sand. Then we can all exhale a sound of relief from this ordeal.