06/01/2026
Here's something most homeowners in East Orange don't realize: a tank that was "taken care of" years ago can still be a ticking time bomb under your yard. 👀
We pulled this 550-gallon underground oil tank from the back of a home in East Orange, New Jersey, and it came with a twist — it had been abandoned in place sometime in the past, cleaned out and filled with stone, then buried and forgotten under a concrete sidewalk in the rear of the property.
That's a setup we see all over Essex County, and here's the catch most people miss: when a tank gets filled in place, nobody is required to test the soil around it first. So the tank can be sitting there nice and "closed" — while the ground around it tells a completely different story. You just don't know until someone digs it up.
Here's what we did on this East Orange job:
✅ Located the abandoned 550-gallon tank beneath the rear concrete sidewalk
✅ Broke out the concrete and excavated down to the tank
✅ Removed the tank (previously filled with stone)
✅ Performed our own visual inspection of the tank and surrounding soil
✅ Township inspection completed on site
✅ Everything passed — clean tank, no signs of a release 🎉
The homeowner was thrilled, and honestly so were we — because a clean result on a previously filled tank is the exception, not the rule. More often than not, these older filled-in-place tanks were quietly leaking before they were ever capped.
So if you're buying a home in East Orange or anywhere in New Jersey and you find out there's a filled or abandoned tank on the property, don't just take the old paperwork at face value. The smart move is to either sample the soil around it or have the tank fully removed before you close — that way there are no expensive surprises after the keys are in your hand. 🔑
Curious whether that old tank in your yard is hiding anything? We're always glad to take a look. 📞
