I Just Destroyed My Garage Floor.

[Highbeam]

Great post. I have the same potential problem with cracks above 2" foam and then poly sheet VB under the foam to hold the gas. If the VB has a hole, or if the gas can burn through VB poly, then the underlying compacted gravel would happily drink up 10 gallons of gas. If the VB does a fine job of containing gasoline then the gasoline will eat foam until it hits equilibrium. It can only eat so much foam.

Now I really want to fill my sawcuts. The cuts worked perfectly and each cut has a crack in the bottom. The cracks are very thin but gasoline is so thin that it should flow through pretty well.

Again, great post. Makes me nervous and want to fill those cuts.

 

[Randy in Maine]

Most of that is just bad advice.

The first thing you should do is to call your state police/RCMP/local fire department and report the spill. In most states that is the law. If you delay is the violation. BC might be different but I doubt it.

In this state they will send out someone to clean it up for you at little or no cost to you.

They are trying to save your drinking water aquifer and not to allow your house/garage or neighbors house to blow up with gas fumes.

Don't be a fool.

 

[srmofo]

Most of that is just bad advice.

The first thing you should do is to call your state police/RCMP/local fire department and report the spill. In most states that is the law. If you delay is the violation. BC might be different but I doubt it.

In this state they will send out someone to clean it up for you at little or no cost to you.

They are trying to save your drinking water aquifer and not to allow your house/garage or neighbors house to blow up with gas fumes.

Don't be a fool.

Bwhahaha...no cost to you...yeah except the giant fine they nail to your *** for having a hazmat team come digg your garage floor up and clean the spill.

Curious about any updates myself

 

[Kevin54]

If it were me, I wouldn't worry too much about it, EPA or otherwise. If the fuel soaked through it would have instantly started to eat the styrofoam. Once it does that the rest of the fuel will follow the lowest spot. As far as tapping the floor and hearing the difference, 75% of that will be in your head, thinking the worst. If the floor was saw cut and cracked all of the way through, then flush it with some water. The gas has evaporated mostly back through the crack that it ran in. As far as the styro being melted back to where you have none at all, I'd be surprised if you have more than 6" at the most melted away.

You could go to the trouble of having things mudjacked or whatever else, but until something really catastrophic happens, I wouldn't worry about it. But this does now give you a reason to caulk or fill the saw cut in somehow so something like that doesn't happen in the future.

 

[Kevin54]

I also would be first wanting to confirm what is going on under there with the fuel spill vs any damage. I've had fuel leaks and spills over night and in my experience it does not evap that quick. Had two gallons lay on an epoxy floor overnight from a leaky Holley Blue fuel pump - damn that was scary opening the door.

I would drill - carefully - maybe a 1/2" hole and feed a tube down there to do some checking. And/or buy a cheap HF spy camera to get a real eyeball under the slab.

Try walking out to a garage that the ice clod that you ran over in your lowered Merc Marquis lost all of it's fuel overnight. I think I had a 25 gallon tank. I was going to work the next morning, and right before I walked through the door, I flicked my cigarette out into the yard. I did call the Fire Department on that one though and all they did was wash it out into my gravel driveway.

 

[Randy in Maine]

Accidents happen every day. I have never seen a homeowner ever get levied a fine for having an accident.

I have seen fines for not reporting though or when somebody just doesn't care about a leak. Even bigger fines when it impacts or puts at risk the drinking water for an entire town or even a private well or a waterbody.

Call them.

 

[Perryk]

Accidents happen every day. I have never seen a homeowner ever get levied a fine for having an accident.

I have seen fines for not reporting though or when somebody just doesn't care about a leak. Even bigger fines when it impacts or puts at risk the drinking water for an entire town or even a private well or a waterbody.

Call them.

So they can do what?...

 

[PugetDude]

Accidents happen every day. I have never seen a homeowner ever get levied a fine for having an accident.

I have seen fines for not reporting though or when somebody just doesn't care about a leak. Even bigger fines when it impacts or puts at risk the drinking water for an entire town or even a private well or a waterbody.

Call them.

"We're from the government and we're here to help"

Not in these parts...

 

[G_P]

So they can do what?...

Dig up a massive hole to remove any soil that may have even come near the gas spill. then they bill you an astronomical amount of money to dispose of the "toxic" soil.

Then they can choose to fine you huge amounts if they feel like it.

Then they leave and you are left with a huge hole to fill in. If they had to jackhammer up your floor to get at the dirt then your paying for a new floor to be poured as well.

10gal or so is nothing. most probably evaporated before it even went down the crack.

Most old gas stations probably have hundreds if not thousands of gallons of fuel in the ground from spills and leaking storage tanks.

 

[D.J.]

Ok lots of bad advice in this thread in my opinion. Just to let you all know I have hauled fuel since 1976. Flooding with water will do more harm than good because gas float on water. So if you flood with water the vb would allow you to just be spreading out the area of coverage of the problem. Extuinguish all pilot lights on any gas powered applicances.

 

[Randy in Maine]

Well there are a lot of things that can be done to mimimize the impact from spilled petroleum and many of those are very site specific. A lot depends on the native soils at the site, homeowner wells nearby, town water supply nearby, how much and just what was was spilled, is there any free product that can still be recovered.

I agree that 10 gallons of gas is not a huge amount, but it still needs to be reported. Somebody that knows something has to go and look at it to see what needs to be done.

Example...way down the street from me an elderly lady has summer cottage heated with #2 oil (diesel) and had a 275 gallon tank located next to the house. For some reason (likely an old tank rusted from the inside or a hunk of ice broke off the tank filter) the tank let go. The neighbors smelled it and called the DEP. Maine's DEP came out that day and used sorbent pads to soak up all of the free product they could and then DEP hired a contractor to remove a few dump trucks of contaiminated soil. Maybe 10-15 yards or so, but I don't know. I do know that they replaced her tank with a new double walled tank with the little "ice shield" that goes over the filter. They also replaced the soil they removed with clean material. The talk at the post office was that her total out of pocket cost was the $500 "Aboveground Storage Tank" fund deductable and whatever it cost to refill her tank. I would not know if her homeowner's insurance had to pay something or not, since that is none of my business.

I am still saying report the spill, since that is the law in most places. They will likely send out someone who knows something to have a look at the site and determine what needs to be done.

 

[uhcrandy]

Honestly? 10-15 gallons of Gasoline is Nothing! After a day or two(at most!), when all the volatile hydocarbons have evaporated, there should be no chance of fire. You cant tell by the sound. Concrete over stryofoam will sound different for spot to spot. You should be ok, i wouldnt worry about it.

 

[Old Moparz]

Hmm, no reply from the original poster yet, he must have drilled through, made a spark & blew himself up.

If the foam is destroyed, I wouldn't do anything about it until you start to see the effect if any.

I tend to agree with this reply & wouldn't worry as much as you are about it. This is a good lesson though, I have never given thought to gas eating up the foam until reading this.

 

[Architorture]

10 gallons doesn't look so bad...

 

[Perryk]

Dig up a massive hole to remove any soil that may have even come near the gas spill. then they bill you an astronomical amount of money to dispose of the "toxic" soil.

Then they can choose to fine you huge amounts if they feel like it.

Then they leave and you are left with a huge hole to fill in. If they had to jackhammer up your floor to get at the dirt then your paying for a new floor to be poured as well.

10gal or so is nothing. most probably evaporated before it even went down the crack.

Most old gas stations probably have hundreds if not thousands of gallons of fuel in the ground from spills and leaking storage tanks.

Exactly.

 

[jam0o0]

Accidents happen every day. I have never seen a homeowner ever get levied a fine for having an accident.

I have seen fines for not reporting though or when somebody just doesn't care about a leak. Even bigger fines when it impacts or puts at risk the drinking water for an entire town or even a private well or a waterbody.

Call them.

i get dinged for accidents all the time. best to let sleeping dogs lie on this one.

since i used to work in gasoline remediation (clean up) i can tell you that nothing can or should be done for 10 gallons. minimum to start worrying is 100 gal. we never got out of the office for less than 1000 gallons.

i've been on locations that had 2" of gas floating on the water table. you can't tell. it doesn't smell. there is no danger.

also all yall worried about fire or explosions need to go try to light gas with sparks or cigs in a controlled place. it's not like the movies.

 

[c39er]

Yep, I'd agree. Call the EPA/the fire dept and maybe a few haz mat clean up Ph.#'s . They are there for you and your'e safety! 10 gallons is 10 gallons.

 

[A_Pmech]

I see your 10 gallons of spilled gas and I raise you 475 billion gallons of nuclear waste:

http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/cleanup.nsf/sites/Hanford

It's ironic really. The places we used to build "the bombs" are more contaminated than where we dropped them.