John wrote:

Shawn Hearn wrote:


On the way home from dinner with friends tonight, I heard on the radio
(KYW in Philadelphia) that an heating oil company accidentally delivered
heating oil to a home that had converted from oil to gas heating. As a
result, the oil flooded the basement of this home. The home's occupants
were not there at the time. The news story said another company made the
same mistake a few weeks ago.


Articles:
It Happened Again WPVI-TV
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/121...ldelivery.html

Oil Delivered To Wrong House KYW
http://kyw.com/Local%20News/local_story_346205742.html


Another similar story, from central/north New Jersey
Thanks to a flood of oil, family won't be 'home for holidays' Newark
Star-Ledger
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey...2182258470.xml


The oil delivery guy was an ignoramus who should have lost his job
immediately.

When he didn't hear a whistling overfill alarm signal within a couple of
seconds after opening the hose nozzle he should have known something was
wrong and slammed the nozzle closed.

IMO the oil company is liable and to a lesser degree the jerks who
dragged off the old fuel oil tank without removing or at least capping
off the fillpipe on the inside of the house.

(In earlier days I happen to have spent a dozen years as CE of The
Scully Signal Company which developed the "Ventalarm" whistling fuel oil
tank fill signal in the 30s and still making them today.)

A somewhat reverse situation happened to a $1 mil plus house near me two
winters ago. The owners had put it on the market and moved to a home in
the next state. In order to make it salable per local codes they had to
remove its underground 1000 gallon fuel oil tank, which they replaced
with an above ground 275 gallon tank behind the house. The contractor
who did the work for them (It was not their oil company.) partially
filled the new "275" with some of oil from the 1000 gallon tank they
removed.

No one thought to inform the fuel oil company, which, thinking they
still had a 1000 gallon tank, and based on the date of that tank's last
fill and the degree days which had transpired, didn't make an
"automatic" delivery in time to keep the 275 gallon tank from running
dry. The heat went off, pipes froze and burst and water kept running
until it emerged outside the house where I happened to be the one who
noticed rivers of brown ice running down one of their garage doors from
somewhere inside the house.

http://home.comcast.net/~jwisnia18/freezer.jpg

I took on the unpleasant task of calling and breaking the the bad news
to the owners. The damage to the interior of their house was terrible to
observe.

My own thoughts about the smarts of a homeowner who'd leave a house
unoccupied during a New England winter without so much as a low
temperature remote alarm system or even simply turning off the house's
main water valve are best left unsaid.

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia

(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)

"As long as there are final exams, there will be prayer in public
schools"