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North Vancouver Oil Tanks, Old Houses and House Insurance

Blog by Buchamer Inspection Services Ltd. | January 13th, 2012

I received this note from my clients about Oil Tanks that I thought I would share with you -

Updates in the world of old houses/oil tanks: A month after we moved in the insurance company put us through a bit of a nightmare when they realized they had given us the wrong oil tank form to fill out and then told us our home insurance would be void just before Christmas because the tank is only a single wall, even though it is only 4.5 years old.

The insurance company noted that even though the house/tank were insured with the previous owners they are mostly just putting new owners through the ringer. We had to add an earthquake strap ($80 of airplane grade wire and a heavy duty sunken metal bar held in place by the existing concrete wall) to prevent the tank from tipping over in case of earthquake and we have 90 days to install an oil yeller tray http://www.oilyeller.com/ -this was the best (cheapest and fastest) solution the insurance company came up with to appease the new requirements for our outside, single-wall oil tank without having to replace the entire thing with a double wall unit that we don't have the $ for!