Undeclared contamination on purchased house

Gordoknot

Sorry for the long first post but I'm feeling a bit distraught...

Last week I bought a house that used to have internally installed oil heating that has been removed sometime around 5 years ago. My survey found no evidence of any issues with this beyond a left over ceiling vent but obviously the surveyor could not check under the carpets or floorboards. However, last night, whilst removing the carpet in the hallway I noticed a smell of petrol, and on closer inspection it looks like an amount of oil has been leaked at some point in the past, which is why I guess they removed the oil central heating.

I am worried as whoever was in charge of the house at the time of the leak has made no attempt at clearing up the spill and it looked like it has soaked into the floorboards and joists, the ground under the floor and the concrete base of the chimney, at least. Instead of clearing it up it looks like they have set up a random set of vents that have probably allowed the fumes to escape. This is all before I notify the environment agency and hope that my house has not been poisoning all my neighbours and the local wildlife for the last however many years, which no doubt will be another expense. It may also explain the unpleasant taste of the tap water.

Has anyone had a simillar experience? Do I have any come back to the seller? Or is this something that I just have to accept and somehow clear it up?

GwylimT

How do you expect oil to get through your pipes and into the water?

Have you actually touched the stains, an oil stain can look wet and brand new. Oil however doesn't smell of petrol, petrol also doesn't stay around more than a couple of hours.

Gordoknot

Heating oil smells a bit like petrol, in so much as it smells like a petrol station forecourt. I don't generally smell petrol up close.

I also read on the environment agency website that heating oil can penetrate plastic water pipes. The water taste could just be in my head, its not impossible.

Although the stain is not new it would appear that its been absorbed by the carpet that was put down after the leak which leads me to think that it's was being soaked up from the floorboards that had soaked up the heating oil. The underlay was dissolved, and the carpet back was not far behind. It looks like nasty stuff!

AdrianC

Can't be that bad a spillage if a carpet managed to hide the odour.

The tapwater and poisoning comments are just massive over-reactions.

Gordoknot

I hope you're right, both about the size of spillage and the water contamination. I guess I will find out once I've figured out the full extent of the damage. Still irks me that the seller would have known about the spill and somehow didn't need to tell anyone about it!

MrJB

Did they respond to any questions raised in relation to contamination?

Rambosmum

Were the sellers the ones who removed the oil heating or was it owners before them?

Gordoknot

I am not sure if the previous owners removed the heating or not. They inherited the house from the original owners but that also doesn't mean they new about it. I don't immediately remeber if they answered any questions about contamination so I'll have to re-read the huge amount of documentation I have from my solicitors. I have asked them if they have any input on the situation but I get the feeling that now the transaction is complete they don't care, which I can totally understand, no matter how unhelpful it is.

dc197

MrJB wrote: »

Did they respond to any questions raised in relation to contamination?

This is the biggie. Everything you do should revolve around this.

martindow

I don't really understand why a leak of oil would cause someone to remove an oil fired boiler. You would just spend a few pounds replacing a length of pipe. Leaking oil can be a problem with private water supplies from a borehole but not with a mains supply.

macman

Where exactly was the oil tank and where was the boiler? The only oil pipe would be between those two, not all around the ground floor, and the boiler would normally be on or near an external wall to allow the flueing, so minimally run within the property But you imply that there has been a spillage within the whole of the ground floor?
Hard to tell from your post, but are you perhaps under the impression that oil circulates around the rads in an oil CH system?
Your mains water supply comes in a sealed pipe from the street and oil cannot leach into this, unless you had a private borehole supply!
I suspect that this spillage is something else altogether, maybe from some storage or use of petroleum based products on the site?