John Delorie conducted a general inspection for a home that I was considering purchasing in West Seattle. Using the word "general" is probably not fair or accurate because John's inspection was incredibly thorough and comprehensive. My General Contractor commented that he had not ever heard of an inspector going to the lenghths that John did to provide an overall picture of the health/condition of the home.

The house in consideration had an above-ground heating oil tank that was in active use and good working condition so there was no reason to suspect that there might be an additional heating oil tank buried on the property. That said, John decided to look (with his flaslight) underneath the deck located off of the back of the house and discovered a metal pipe sticking out of the ground. He suspected it was a buried heating oil tank and suggested that we bring that to the attention of the Seller's Real Estate Agent.

Long story short; it turns out that it was indeed a buried tank that was never decommissioned and, through soil testing, had leaked a significant amount of oil to the tune of 8x the state mandated level that requires action to remove the tank and soil and clean any remaining contamination. After which, additional testing is required to determine that all contaminated soil has been removed and the oil did not reach the water table.

The cost and potential future liability for all of this can be significant and is not something we wanted to take-on. Thankfully, John DeLorie is thorough and diligent and takes pride in his work; if not for that, we might have inherited a serious problem.

Thank you to John and Criterium-Pioli Engineers.