Oil, Oil, Everywhere

So as everyone knows, I moved into a big, beautiful farm house in upstate New York. Also, we all know that upstate NY is infamous for its cold and snowy winters.

My house runs with oil heat. I like oil heat; it is warm and effective and at the current moment prices are fairly ok. I have had oil heat, kerosene heat (that was weird), and electric heat. I like oil the best so far, for the simple reason that it is the least expensive and most dependable.

So with this very cold winter and lots of snow (something in the realm of 64" this winter), I had to get my oil tank filled.

This was bound to happen sooner or later, and I have gotten oil fills before so this really was nothing new. I did my research and got a great price. The company was supposed to come to my house, do a quick inspection of the tanks (I have two that are connected together), and then fill my tanks. This should have taken approximately half an hour.

The oil guy came, and I opened the door to say hello, fully expecting him to come in for the inspection. He, instead, pulls the hose from the truck, says hello, and then begins to fill. I figured, he must know what he is doing.

A few minutes later, there was a strange noise coming from the basement that kind of sounded like a waterfall...

Anyone who has ever had oil heat, or who has ever dealt with oil at all, may currently be cringing. Yes indeed, the oil was filling my basement instead of the oil tanks...

I screamed for the oil guy to stop filling. We both went to the basement and just stared for a minute. I never really payed attention, but home heating oil is a really neat shade of red.

He called the office, and got another guy to come help him clean up the spill and fix the tank where the oil had spilled from.

They said they would sprinkle a drying agent over the spill area. I expected this to be spread over where the oil was; they meant they were going to spread it all over my basement floor and steps to the basement. (This picture looks funny, thanks to the way blogger loads them. Tip your computer to the right, and you would be looking into my basement stairwell.)

Also, there were some nice foam rubber mats on top of the concrete leading from the steps to the laundry area. These were soaked in oil and had to be removed and dumped. All of this took about 3 hours, and they still had to come back to finish the clean-up job.

The next day, the oil guys returned to clean up the drying agent. My basement floor still has powdery chemicals on it and smells of oil, but at least the rest of the house smells a little less like oil. My headache from the fumes is slowly fading, and maybe one of these days I will feel safe enough to light a candle. The lesson of the day: Make sure the oil tank inspection is completed before they begin filling the tank.