Blog

February 25, 2020

Why You Need an Oil Tank Scanning

Oil tank scanning can sound like a very ominous task. It does have a bit of doom and gloom attached to it, if you don’t know what oil tank scanning is. Let’s talk about this procedure and why it is necessary if you think you have a heating oil tank on your property. Once you are aware of exactly what oil tank scanning is and how simple the action is, you will have no problem booking a scan for your property, if you think that there is a chance you need to remove a tank from your yard. Here is a short history of the heating oil tank, and why it now needs to be removed.

If you live in the lower mainland, your home is probably being heated this winter by hydro electric heating. This is a fairly new innovation in heating. As recently as the 1970s homes were heated by furnaces fueled by special heating oil. This oil was stored in a giant tank that was sometimes buried in the yard and then attached to the house. The invention was great, because this oil furnace heated the home much more evenly than other forms of heat, such as wood stoves or fireplaces. You could even control the heat with a thermostat. You would order your oil in the fall and then a truck would come and fill the tank. When the tank ran low, you topped it up.

When electric heating replaced heating oil, people didn’t bother getting rid of their tanks. They just allowed them to sit underground, dormant and deteriorating. These tanks would sometimes still have some oil in them, no longer needed to heat the home. These tanks were built to last, but anything manufactured will break down if it is not tended to from time to time, and that brings us to the problem with heating oil tanks today. These relics of a different time are rusting and cracking under the yards of some of these older homes.

The oil and tanks are terrible for the soil that makes up the yards of these homes. If your house potentially sits on one of these tanks, you need to do your part for the environment and get it removed. The first step toward that action is booking an oil tank scan. West Coast Tank Recovery can come out with our top of the line equipment and find out whether you have a heating oil tank on your property or not.