Salem's initial target market was petroleum marketers in NC, as our founder oversaw 400% sales growth of a Exxon distributorship in the last eight years as its VP/GM.
Our first in-place, inert foam fill closure was in March 1989 at the historic Mast Store in Valle Crucis, NC. Whether it's abandoning over one hundred 270-gallon USTs at a condo complex, three 20,000 gallon heating oil USTs at a high/middle school complex or just a 550-gallon residential UST, no job is too large or small for Salem. We have recently switched foam fill systems to the CFI TankFoam™ Abandonment Process to better serve our clientele. The CFI™ system allows us to handle around 40,000 gallon per trip at a faster delivery rate than our old system.
We also offer complete UST excavation and vacuum truck services for both residential and commercial USTs. All personnel involved with these two services have completed the OSHA 40-hour HAZWOPER course and are annually re-certified. If the client is worried about damage to ground foliage or grass, we place plywood under the mini-hoe to prevent such happening. Heating oil USTs are cut open and pressure washed to extract all sludges with the vac truck that can drip onto grass or shrubbery. Here are a few photos of recent excavations.
As most houses built before 1973 had heating oil USTs, many homeowners have no idea if a buried tank is still present on their property. Salem uses a surveyor-grade metal locator (Schonstedt Heli-Flux™) to identify such vessels. If a tank is discovered, our process of accessing the UST involves only disturbing a 2.5" diameter hole. Here are the tools we used to locate a tank in June 2017 and inspect it. Once inspected, we place a 3" test expansion plug in the hole and an orange survey flag next to it. Salem's Senior Principal has done well over 5,000 metal detector residential UST surveys since 1989.
We can also provide the removal of out of service residential ASTs (Aboveground Storage Tanks) that are in crawl spaces or beside exterior foundation walls.