"doggedyfight" wrote in message
...
My 150 year old house is now heated by gas. In fact, gas service has
been in the house for probably more than 100 years since there are
pipes in the walls from old gas lighting.

Looking around the basement the other day, I noticed a small stub of a
flexible 3/8" OD copper pipe peeking up from the concrete floor (it is
in the area where I believe the old boiler was from long before we
bought the house).

The inside of the pipe smelled of oil/grease and when I stuck a stiff
wire down the pipe it seemed to run at least 2 feet horizontally just
below the
cement surface. Pulling back the wire, it was covered with an
oily/greasy residue.

Does this signal that there was oil heat at some time or worse, the
presence of an old underground oil tank beneath the basement?
If not, what else could this small diameter pipe have been used for?


We have no other evidence of there ever being oil heat or oil tanks in
our house.

Did you have the home inspected when you bought it? If they missed it most
others would. Like others suggeted I'd cut it down. You could break up the
area around it cut it down below the surface throw on a concrete patch and
paint the whole floor gray.