Money Descending a Staircase

Okay.  This is a room in my old house. It is the (only) access to the basement.  You can glimpse, slightly, the old stone steps and the granite wall as you descend.  This would once have been outdoors, but at sometime in the past (who knows when? The house was built in 1768) a room was added that incorporated this cellar access.

The furnace, as we all know, is in the basement.  Every year I have the furnace cleaned and serviced in the fall.  Last fall they told me that I would be needing a new oil tank in the not-too-distant future because the old one was rusting, and of course you don't want to wait till it rusts through and dumps hundreds of gallons of oil into the basement.. So this spring I called them and told them to install a new oil tank when I arrived in early June, for the summer.

They came to look over the situation, measured,  and ascertained that they could not get a new oil tank down there because the opening was not large enough.

There are these moments---last winter, when my well collapsed and I was told that I needed a new well
drilled, was another---when I think: Oh the hell with it. I'll burn the house down.

But I underestimate Yankee ingenuity and determination.

They decided to put in two smaller tanks, and connect them to each other. (Then, to get the old one out, they would cut it into pieces and take it out piece by piece)

Here they go, with Tank #1.  (You can see Alfie being ever-helpful in a supervisory capacity)

Both tanks are now in, though they haven't yet removed the older, bigger one.

I love these guys.

Comments

[Jane]

What a wonderful solution! (not to mention wonderful repairmen) I too have a narrow, winding basement stair way, the new dryer, narrowest we could find, practically had to be greased to make it down.--Jane

[T2]

Last November I came home in a storm to find a steady leak of oil in my basement. It was a Friday night, so all the company could do was an emergency fix until they got a whole crew out the next day. I was bemused when I learned the only patch that would reach the necessary spot was of all things, a thick layer of Ivory bar soap. There seems to be a bit of MacGiver in these oil repairmen.

[Linda Kang]

ah, the powers of American ingenuity :) I didn't realize the furnace has gallons of oil in it.