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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Manchester, Vermont
    Posts
    298

    Default I can still smell the fuel oil

    Seller wants to sell really bad.

    Buyer want to know what that awful smell is in the cellar.

    ME, "its fuel oil"

    Customer: "you mean that fuel tank over there in the corner".

    ME, "I think it more then just that fuel tank, were smelling, let me look in-
    to this, and I report to you, what I find out."


    Here what I found out, a local fuel company sent a driver to deliver fuel to
    the owner address. The driver is brand new, neither been to this house
    before. See a pair of pipe located outside the house. He connected his
    hose to the fill pipe and pump away, way pass 275, even pass 400 before
    he stop. Just so you, know the driver reported the house was lock and no one
    home at the time. It turn out the the diriver was using the old filler pipe,
    cut off from the oil tank. but never removed.

    Customer: "did you find out what's making that smell"

    Me: see my answer above.

    Customer: "do all the stupid people live in Vermont"

    ME: "not all, but we have more than are share"

    Customer: "they did a good job, cleaning up the place, one would never know
    what had happen, if it wasn't for you. By the why when you
    send me your bill and an extra hundred for finding out what
    happen in this house basement.

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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Fletcher, NC
    Posts
    28,032

    Default Re: I can still smell the fuel oil

    Robert,

    I am sure you were very good at spelling out *environmental hazard and clean up costs could be into the multiple tens of thousands of dollars* and *possibly even more than the house is valued at*.

    Jerry Peck
    Construction/Litigation/Code Consultant - Retired
    www.AskCodeMan.com

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Caledon, Ontario
    Posts
    4,982

    Default Re: I can still smell the fuel oil

    That same scenario has played out exactly the same with many homes who had not had the filler pipe capped. Happen to a friend of mine in Toronto. Esso fuel oil truck pulls up, driver begins to fill oil tank. Neighbour comes out and tells driver that the house has been converted to natural gas the week before. Driver tell neighbour more or less to mind his own business.

    Six hundred litres later and a basement full of oil, damaging everything in contact with the floor, and not to mention the odour and a year later after remediation, Esso paid out $350k and that was twenty years ago.


  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Fletcher, NC
    Posts
    28,032

    Default Re: I can still smell the fuel oil

    Quote Originally Posted by Raymond Wand View Post
    Esso paid out $350k and that was twenty years ago.
    That's what I'm talking about.

    Jerry Peck
    Construction/Litigation/Code Consultant - Retired
    www.AskCodeMan.com

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Near Philly, Pa.
    Posts
    1,682

    Exclamation Oooh-oooh, that smell

    Why in the world did the seller not sue the oil company for full remediation or have their homeowner's insurance do it then subro? Now these morons are facing Failure to Disclose. That includes the listing agent. All preventatble but the burden should fall back on the oil company who caused the disaster. The seller should also have gone after whomever removed a tank and uncapped it, unless they did it on the sly in which case, they got what they deserved. They could involve the local Fire Marshal to investigate, too.

    Yes, better advise buyer about the obscene cost involved with cleanup and that this incident must be disclosed by any future selllers of that house.

    Keep the fire in the fireplace.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Caledon, Ontario
    Posts
    4,982

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