Heating Oil Company Dumps Their Product

[catcul]

I was inspired to write about the two lawsuits my parents filed. This is the second.

One year, the local natural gas company decided to run some of their lines into our neighborhood. They offered to install a gas line into our house for free. My parents decided to take them up on their offer. At the time, my parents were using a heating oil furnace. My parents had the heating oil furnace removed, cancelled the heating oil deliveries, and installed a brand new natural gas furnace.

The heating oil company decided to deliver heating oil despite the fact that my parents had cancelled the service and had the tank sealed. They spilled gallons of heating oil in the back yard. If you're wondering, heating oil stinks to high heaven. When my parents sued HOC, they decided that stonewalling was the best course of action. In fact, the head of HOC told the judge that he was out to the property and didn't smell anything. My dad informed the judge that HOC head was never anywhere the property.

Eventually, HOC settled with my parents. They agreed to clean up the heating oil and pay other damages caused by the oil spill. My mother is still not allowed to talk about it, but HOC never made an agreement to me.

Apparently, this has happened with alarming frequency at one time. Chuck Shepherd retired the heating oil stories from his "News of the Weird." In his "No Longer Weird" list, the heating oil story is listed as #30.

[XCashier]

The heating oil company decided to deliver heating oil despite the fact that my parents had cancelled the service and had the tank sealed. They spilled gallons of heating oil in the back yard.

Did the delivery driver not know of the cancellation, or was that spill done on purpose?! If the former, that company seriously needs to improve it's communication with the employees.

If the latter, what was the point? Deliberately throwing away valuable product and damaging someone else's property...

[It's me]

Usually what happens is that the oil tank is removed, but the fill pipe is left in place. Driver shows up (wrong house, failed to cancel deliveries, whatever) and pumps a couple hundred gallons of fuel oil down the fill pipe straight into to basement. To prevent this the fill pipes are now capped on the inside. Sounds like the delivery guy stuck the nozzle in the fill pipe, went back to the truck and started pumping without checking to see if the oil was actually going down the fill pipe rather that backing up (because of the cap inside) and then spilling out all over the yard.

[Ironclad Alibi]

When I stopped using my my underground oil tank the fill pipe and the vent pipe were filled with concrete to prevent that very situation.

[dalesys]

I remember one of the other diesel boys at Ladle Amwreka pumping 40 gallons of regular into the cab of an Allfried Van Lines truck with a removed cab tank...

[MoonCat]

Usually what happens is that the oil tank is removed, but the fill pipe is left in place. Driver shows up (wrong house, failed to cancel deliveries, whatever) and pumps a couple hundred gallons of fuel oil down the fill pipe straight into to basement. To prevent this the fill pipes are now capped on the inside. Sounds like the delivery guy stuck the nozzle in the fill pipe, went back to the truck and started pumping without checking to see if the oil was actually going down the fill pipe rather that backing up (because of the cap inside) and then spilling out all over the yard.

This happend to the BF of someone I worked with. He owned an apt. building and had replaced all the oil heaters with gas or electric, I'm not sure which. The oil company came along one day and delivered to the wrong address and he had a basement full of oil. They tried to claim they had the right address...someone actually crossed out the house number and wrote in the wrong one over it. I believe they did end up paying damages.

[XCashier]

Sounds like the delivery guy stuck the nozzle in the fill pipe, went back to the truck and started pumping without checking to see if the oil was actually going down the fill pipe rather that backing up (because of the cap inside) and then spilling out all over the yard.

That makes sense; thank you for the explanation. I've never lived in a house that used heating oil, so I didn't know how that worked.

[catcul]

I've never lived in a house that used heating oil, ....

Just consider yourself lucky.

[XCashier]

Just consider yourself lucky.

Well, I lived most of my life in Phoenix AZ, where we had an electric heat pump. It never got severely cold in the winter, so we didn't need heavy-duty heating in the house. Since moving here, we've lived in apartments, and they take care of the heating. So I have no experience with heating oil, fireplaces or anything like that.

Now, the exact opposite problem -- the air conditioning crapping out on a 115° F day -- that, I have experience with!

[Amina516]

Happened around my way a few years back. Poor guy had an old house that had had oil heat but was converted to gas. He came home one day to gallons and gallons of oil in his basement. They never found out who did it. There was a local effort to raise money to get the basement cleaned.

[catcul]

Thankfully, there's only one heating oil company that services our area. My parents knew exactly who was to blame.

[Shalom]

They did it again.

I just heard this report on WINS this morning and said, Gee, this sounds familiar...

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/11/...ery-oil-slick/

So far no oil companies have come forward to claim responsibility.

(edit; NBC also had a report. http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local...233534701.html )