If you heat your home with oil or have a summer/winter
hookup which means your furnace heats your water as well as heating your house,
you may want to read this.
The average in-house oil tank holds 275 gallons of oil. Now compare that to the average in-ground
swimming pool that holds 20,000 gallons of water that doesn’t sound like much
oil.
Consider for a moment though that if the swimming pool
leaks, you get water in your yard. If
your oil tank leaks you get an EPA rated mess.
When my furnace was last serviced the service repair guy
told me that my oil tank looked like it was on its last legs. He said 36 years old is an “old” tank and
that I should consider replacing it.
Considering the hassle of clean up and intrusive government oversight on
heating oil, I decided to replace it.
I got four quotes and chose the one from the plumber I most
frequently use. One plumber who sells
the tanks but does not install them, told me that the “normal” 275 gallon tank
sells to installers for around $500.00.
The quotes I got for installation including the tank ranged from
$1700.00 to $2800.00. My oil company
was the highest quote which disappointed me since they have done quality work
for me before. The oil company also had
a vertical space saving tank that was $3800.00 but my basement is spacious so
that wasn’t necessary.
My recommendation is that you consider the reputation of the
installer when looking at price.
Considering the implications of a tank failure, you do NOT want any
fly-by-night contractor installing your oil tank.
This is a FYI post, your oil tank may be fine but I would
suggest if it is older than 20 years you should have it checked by someone you
trust. An oil tank failure would be a
homeowner nightmare.
If reviewing a product, it may have been received free of charge. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.
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