Expert Soil Testing Services in New Jersey
Let’s walk you through the process start to finish below. Also be sure to watch a video at the bottom of this page explaining our certified New Jersey soil testing services.
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When buying and house with an oil tank in the state of New Jersey you want to protect yourself by testing the soil surrounding the tank for any past oil tank leak damage. Everyone has heard of the stories of the homeowners who got stuck paying for a clean-up that cost $50k, $75k even over $100k. Once you purchase the house you are 100% responsible for what under the ground. Yes, you can sue the old home owner but who wants to go through that and have to pay an attorney to maybe find out they have no money! That is a losing situation! Make sure you limit your liability when it comes to testing an oil tank in New Jersey.
What is the best way to do that? Hire Qualified Tank Services to come out to the site and extract soil from the surrounding oil tank. If the soil is clean, you then have the option to purchase our six month guarantee. You must purchase at the time you receive your results and you must hire Qualified to remove the oil tank within six months. If there are any issues with the oil tank when it is removed, then you will not have to pay any additional fees. Qualified Tank Services will get you a No Further Action letter from the NJDEP for FREE! No other contractor will offer you anything like this.
How can we be the only contractor who can offer this amazing deal? This is a process that most contractors will perform by hand with hand boring tools. This process can be done by hand and we sometimes do the test by hand if we can’t get our equipment by the oil tank due to access issues. The more accurate way to test the soil is to utilize a Geo Probe. (check them out here) Qualified invested over $100K into this specialized equipment just so they can offer their clients the best tools for the job.
Our Geo Probe weighs about 3k lbs. and can fit in most tight spaces. The way the machine works is similar to holding your finger over a straw that is dipped into a glass of water. When you remove the straw you will be able to hold the water due to the suction from your finger. This is a little different then how the Geo Probe operates but similar. A plastic tube is put into a steel tube which is then hammered down through the soil by the machine. These tubes are 4ft in length so the first 4ft will be removed. After the 4ft steel tube is pounded into the soil the machine will then grab the end of the tube and pull it out of the soil. Inside of the steel tube you will now have the plastic tube filled with soil. The plastic tube is then sliced open so we can gain access to the soil. The soil will then be screened with the old sniff test and utilizing a PID meter to determine if the soil is contaminated. If the first sample shows signs of contamination then the testing is completed. The sample will be sent off to a state certified lab to get analyzed.
This is a yes or no test. This service will not tell you the extent of the contamination. Most of our clients think that we can give them a complete view of what is under the ground by taking one soil sample. This is simply not true. To get a complete picture we would have to take several soil samples to delineate the soil around the tank. We would then be able to tell how deep and how far the contamination extends. This service is a completely different price. Please contact us for more information if that is what you are looking for.
If we do not discover evidence of contamination after the first soil boring, then we will proceed and take two more soil samples from around the tank. We will sample three sides of the tank not four simply because we never drill between the oil tank and the house due to the fact that is where the oil lines are and they can’t be located. The oil lines are made of copper and then can be penetrated very easily which would then cause an oil spill.
If all three borings appear to be clean, QTS will then combine all three samples into one sample and send it off to a state certified lab to get results. On a normal turnaround time this would take about 7 business days to get the results. We also have the option to rush the samples for an additional charge.
Once the results are reviewed from the lab and they show ND (non-detect) we can then offer our six month guarantee! You can now purchase the property knowing that all your liability has been eliminated as long as you hire us to remove the tank within six months. Also check out our information on acquiring a NJ oil tank removal grant. Or find out more information on our oil tank removal NJ services now!