New line for oil tank

[Rabbit]

As it's in the middle of the heating season, I'm not going to do this until the spring, but our heating oil company does our heater service and notified us that since our line is buried under the basement floor that a new line should be installed. No details were provided about how it would be installed.

Will they most likely run a new line under the slab in some plastic conduit or something or on top of the floor with some sort of protector? Thinking of doing it myself (it's about 10 feet of line) so just looking for best practices here. Looks like 1/2" O.D. copper line, probably a compression fitting on either end.

Thanks.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Did they give a reason to change the line? Any reason to suspect a leak?

You could run a copper line above the concrete yourself. Just be sure it is protected from people stepping on it or kicking etc. If your tank was to leak out because of a ruptured line, you are looking a thousands of dollars in cleanup. I know someone that has a loss of about 15 gallons and it is costing $5000. I've heard of others running five times that.

[Bob_M]

Earlier this year I had to have a new line run to my furnace. Mine too was buried IN the concrete floor. The new line was run from the tank up the cement wall along the sill around the corner, down the wall to the nozzle input. The entire line was encased in a plasticy flexible tubing which was attached at various places with screwed in holders. Pretty much out of sight and no problems.

Good luck.

[Tony Miklos]

If you are were temps drop below zero and the tank is outside, I'd run a two line system. The fuel pump has a bypass and the *extra* fuel is circulated back to the tank. This can greatly reduce the possibility of the fuel turning into a semi solid paraffin wax. Not only that, but if you run out of fuel, after refilling the tank, (or even pouring 5 gallons of kerosene in it) you normally don't need to prime the pump or bleed the line. It does it by itself. It may take 2 or three resets on the burner.

[willshak]

On 12/2/2004 3:02 PM US(ET), Rabbit took fingers to keys, and typed the following:

It doesn't have to go under the concrete. My oil tank is buried in the ground (since 1984)just outside my basement. The feed and the return lines are about a foot underground from the top of the tank over to the basement poured concrete wall. They pass through a hole drilled in the concrete and enter the basement about 5' from the floor. From there they travel up the wall and then across the ceiling on the side of a wooden built-up girder to the burner on the other side of the basement. No problems with the path.