Old home heating oil or No. 2 fuel oil use & disposition.

This article discusses what to do with old home heating oil, and addresses the usability of old heating oil.

Old Home Heating Oil: What to Do With It?

• If your property has a quantity of unused heating oil and you do not plan to make use of it, the oil should be removed from the storage tank and the tank should be properly abandoned. There may be a charge to disposed of the heating oil.
  
  See OIL TANK ABANDONING PROCEDURE.
• Your heating oil company can pump heating oil out of an oil tank that is to be removed or abandoned.
  
  See REMOVING OLD FUEL FROM OIL TANKS.
• If the heating oil stored in the tank that is to be emptied or abandoned is not old, and if you are installing a new oil storage tank, ask your heating oil company about pumping the oil out of the old tank and into the new oil tank for you.
  
  In this case you can minimize the pumping trouble and cost by using up as much of the heating oil in the old tank as you can before changing to the new oil storage tank.
  
  See OIL TANK ABANDONING PROCEDURE.
• If you want to make use of old heating oil from an old oil storage tank, depending on its age and storage conditions that may be acceptable, but you may need to remove water or other contaminants that may be present.
  
  See HEATING OIL SHELF LIFE and
  
  see OIL TANK WATER CONTAMINATION.

Removing old fuel from underground oil tanks

The UFPBC also requires that underground petroleum tanks to be closed in-place shall be made safe by removing flammable or combustible liquids from the tank and connecting lines; disconnecting the suction inlet, gauge and vent lines; and capping the remaining piping.

All storage tanks removed from their location must also have flammable or combustible liquids removed, have the same lines disconnected; have sections of connecting lines not to be used further removed, and have inlets, outlets, and any leaks capped or plugged. The basic procedures for meeting these requirements are defined in the State and federal regulatory programs.

In addition to requiring the same basic procedures as the State regulations, the federal UST regulations require that a site assessment be performed by the owner/operator when a tank is closed. (Heating oil tanks, and farm and residential tanks storing less than 1,100 gallons of motor fuel are exempt from these regulations.)

See INDOOR OIL TANK ABANDONMENT for some suggestions for using up heating oil or removing it from an oil tank to be abandoned.

For a detailed description of the steps required for proper tank abandonment or for more information on site assessments and permanent tank closure, contact your state department of environmental conservation. In New York inspectors can contact the author or the Bulk-Storage help-line 800-242-3451.

How to Use Up Heating Oil Before Removing or Replacing an Oil Tank

Oil to Gas Heat Conversion Advice - using up heating oil fuel

If you are going to convert to gas or another heating source but you first want to use up the heating oil in your oil storage tank, and provided that your oil fired heating equipment (oil fired boiler, furnace, or water heater) is good operating condition, you can choose to simply let the old, to-be-abandoned oil fired equipment keep running until you run out of oil ... almost. There are a few problems to watch out for:

If your oil tank piping lines come off of the top of the oil tank and are properly installed the lines won't pick up the sludge, water, and last few inches of oil in the tank, so you'll probably be fine just running your oil fired equipment until you run out of oil.

If your oil tank piping lines come off of the bottom of the oil tank and you run it out there is the risk of pulling sludge and crud into the oil filter, oil burner, and losing heat if those components clog. If the oil burner shuts off in that manner, it'll indeed be shut off firmly until it's repaired, so don't try this if you're still depending on the oil heat to keep working (say to avoid freezing).

Your gas heat or other new source of heating should be hooked up and ready to run. Thus you can run the oil heat until it runs out or fails on clogging without risking leaving the building with no heat source - risking frozen pipes, water damage, mold contamination, etc.

The heating service technicians will not want to remove old oil-fired heating equipment until it is completely cold. That's because they don't want to deal with hot water, burns, etc.

The old oil tank may still need to be pumped out if there's oil remaining in it - lest you get a messy leak and spill later.

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Reader Q&A - also see RECOMMENDED ARTICLES & FAQs

On 2020-10-17 by (mod)

You'd have the oil tank pumped out and removed by an oil storage tank removal company.

More suggestions are above on this page.

On 2020-10-17 by jeff kohl

What do i do with old fuel oil not used anymore changed to gas ?

On 2019-11-10 - by (mod) -

I do NOT recommend trying to make other use of the old heating fuel as we don't want to do anything that releases it to the environment.

Your heating company will pump out the old tank - some companies will even pay for the fuel.

On 2019-11-10 by Cindy Gray

We are removing an old fuel oil tank from our church there is still about 175 gallons of fuel still left in the tank. One of the parishioner offered to take the fuel, but upon looking at it he felt is was way to dark to be used for fuel oil. We want to know if it can be used for anything else at all ie .. undercoating for vehicles. We need to know before our fuel company co.es to remove old tank as we replaced with a more fuel effcient propane tank. He was also worried about to much sludge clogging his lines when siphoning the old fuel

On 2019-09-23 by Anonymous

@Doreen Cole,
We will remove it free if you are local to Geneva ohio...440-466-3311....Bob

On 2019-09-23 by bob

We will take your old heating oil or used engine oil for our waste oil burner...440-466-3311

On 2019-01-14 by Jake

I'm helping a friend take a tank out and I was wondering if I could burn the quart-ish of oil left over somehow? I'm thinking set the tank in a field and throwing a burning rag in, and just waiting until it's burnt up. But, I've never seen how 20 y/o heating oil burns.

On 2017-11-09 - by (mod) -

You can call a local oil delivery company to see if they're willing to pump and just donate the oil. However if it is old and contaminated with too much water and sludge they may not be willing to take it out for free as it may have two little value.

Keep in mind that if the tank has not been properly abandoned according to the regulations in your state, you may face that cost, or your home buyers will face that cost, as well as the necessity to test to be sure that the tank has not leaked and caused contamination.

If I were selling a house I would take care of the proper tank abandonment ahead of the sale and I would keep complete and accurate documentation to put a potential buyers mind at ease on the topic.

That advice is based on the experience that a buyer concern about an unknown and possibly very expensive oil leak clean up could be a deterrent to sale.

On 2016-10-04 by Doreen Cole

Someone to take for free or donate it.

How do I get rid of heating oil in above ground tank have to sell parents home and this was left after they converted to gas about 25 years ago.

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Continue reading at HEATING OIL SHELF LIFE or select a topic from the closely-related articles below, or see the complete ARTICLE INDEX.

Or see these

Recommended Articles

• HEATING OIL OLD, usable
• HEATING OIL SLUDGE
• HEATING OIL SHELF LIFE how long heating oil can be stored and then used with acceptable results.
• The Oil Storage Tank Website - if you are removing heating oil in preparation to abandon an oil storage tank, see
• Managing Used Oil [PDF] Uses for and handling of used lubricating oils (not heating oil) is discussed in US EPA publication

Suggested citation for this web page

HEATING OIL OLD, usable? at InspectApedia.com - online encyclopedia of building & environmental inspection, testing, diagnosis, repair, & problem prevention advice.

Or see this

INDEX to RELATED ARTICLES: ARTICLE INDEX to HEATING OIL, OIL BURNERS, OIL FIRED HEATERS, OIL TANKS

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