Heating oil leak

Old_Git

I had a leak of heating oil. 
I got it fixed but have a smell of oil in the house. 
How long does it take for the smell to go . At what stage should I contact the insurance company. 
I don’t want the insurance involved if it’s going to clear itself . 

Ebe_Scrooge

Short answer - it depends.  Where was the leak - inside the house?  If so, what got contaminated - carpet, chipboard flooring, concrete floor, etc.?  First things first, I assume you cleared up the oil?  Ordinary detergent (washing up liquid) will help to emulsify the oil and allow it to be removed to a large extent.  The smell will eventually disappear, but it could take many weeks if it's soaked into chipboard flooring or a carpet for instance.  If it's soaked into chipboard, it's usually a fairly simple and cheap DIY job to just replace the contaminated boards.  Something like a carpet will be trickier - but even if you ended up replacing the carpet, it's still not worth claiming on the insurance.  Concrete floor - scrub it well with hot soapy water repeatedly to remove as much as possible, then sprinkle salt over it to draw out the moisture.  Leave it for a day or two, brush off the salt, apply fresh salt.  Repeat several times.

More info on where and how much has leaked will help to elicit more targetted suggestions :-)

Old_Git

The oil boiler is attached to the gabel wall. The oil leaked into the boiler house and onto the driveway. On obvious oil damage inside other than the smell . how much oil , can’t be sure up to 100 litres. 

Ebe_Scrooge

So it's leaked onto an exterior driveway?  In that case I'd try scrubbing it with plenty of hot soapy water and rinsing it off, several times, to remove as much as possible, then the smell should go after a few days.  My only slight reservation with doing that - you need to think about contamination.  It's really not the best idea to be flushing large quantities of oil into the sewage system.  But if you reckon there's about 100 litres, most of it has already soaked into the drive (and possibly the ground beneath), and the damage has been done.  The amount that will be removed by washing will be relatively small.  Hopefully most of the oil will have been contained by the concrete, and not contaminated the ground beneath it too badly.

greatcrested

What did th EA say when you called them?

46.    If a spillage does occur, contact the Agency immediately: the Emergency Hotlinetelephone number is 0800-807060. Agency staff may be able to provide advice andassistance, which could prevent a spill ending in pollution. This could help both reducethe impact of the pollution and the cost of cleaning it up.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69255/pb5765-oil-storage-011101.pdf