Underground Oil Tank Removal in Philadelphia

Most Philadelphia homeowners find out they have a tank from a fill pipe or a vent stub against an exterior wall, a capped line in a basement, or a buyer's inspector pointing at one. Those are indicators, not confirmation. The pipe can be a remnant of a tank that was pulled decades ago, and a tank can exist with every visible trace paved over.

Where the position is uncertain, locating comes first. That is a separate exercise from removal and is covered on the tank sweep page. Booking an excavation around a guess is how a yard gets opened in the wrong place.

Access decides the method more often than the tank does. A detached property in Chestnut Hill with a driveway takes a mini excavator straight to the tank. A rowhouse in Mayfair or Port Richmond with a 14 foot rear yard reached only through the house or a shared alley is a different job, sometimes a hand-dig, and the difference is measured in days rather than hours.

What sits above the tank matters just as much. A tank under a concrete pad, a patio, a driveway apron or mature planting means the surface has to come up and then be put back, and the reinstatement is often the part a homeowner cares most about. The City wants that answered up front: the permit plans have to show surface restoration details for an underground tank.

Party walls and neighboring structures set the last constraint. Excavating hard against a shared wall needs the working space planned before anyone arrives, not negotiated on the day with a machine already on the street.

Pennsylvania One Call is not optional and it is not a formality. Under Act 287 of 1974 as amended, notification has to go in a minimum of three business days, but not more than ten business days, before excavation starts, and the requirement is triggered by using powered equipment in the movement of earth, rock or other material.

It applies to the person doing the digging. PA One Call's own guidance puts the duty on a homeowner excavating their own residential property and on an excavator hired by a homeowner to work on it, so hiring a contractor does not make the notice somebody else's problem in the abstract. On a job we run, the notice is ours.

The practical effect is on your calendar rather than your bill. Three business days is the floor, so a removal cannot be booked for tomorrow, and that matters when the work is tied to a settlement date. It is the most common reason a job that everyone agreed on quickly still starts next week.

Remaining product is pumped out first, then the tank is cleaned of the sludge that settles over decades. The petroleum is manifested and disposed of in line with Pennsylvania DEP requirements. Anyone quoting a removal without asking what is still in the tank is quoting for a job they have not scoped.

The tank is then excavated and lifted whole where the space allows it. Where it does not, and in tight rear yards it often does not, the tank is cut and brought out in sections after it has been cleaned and made safe. Both are normal. What is not normal is a tank being cut before it has been emptied and cleaned.

Soil samples are taken from beneath and around the tank while the excavation is still open, because that is the only moment they can be taken without digging twice. This is the step that converts a removal into a closed question.

A clean laboratory result is the document that answers a buyer, a lender, an insurer or a title company for good. It is worth more than the removal itself in any transaction. A result showing contamination starts a different process, set out on the remediation page, and it also starts a clock: under 25 Pa. Code section 245.305 a confirmed release has to be reported to the appropriate DEP regional office as soon as practicable and no later than 24 hours after confirmation.

The excavation is backfilled with clean material and compacted, and the surface is put back to whatever was agreed at survey. Getting that agreement in writing beforehand is the difference between a finished job and an argument, particularly where a driveway or a patio has been cut.

At the end you should hold three things: the City permit and its Certificate of Approval, the laboratory result for the soil samples, and the disposal documentation for the tank and its contents. That set is what a future buyer's attorney asks for. A removal without it is a removal you cannot prove.