More On My Oil Tank

This post was prompted by yesterday's oil delivery, when I went out this morning to secure the tank.

Ever since the first term of The Jackass Obummer, when home heating oil hit its all time high of $4.19 per gallon, I have had a locking cap on my oil tank. Since diesel and heating oil is the same fuel, just taxed differently, people were stealing it from unsecured tanks. Homes, schools, businesses, and municipalities lost lots of fuel to thieves sucking it right out of the tanks at night. My issue is living a mile down a back country road, and the view to my house is obscured by woods and a steep hill. Even during the middle of the day, a truck parked in the driveway sucking my tank dry would probably go unnoticed and unseen. So, since the winter of 2008-2009 my tank has been locked in the following manner.

The open locking cap on my fill pipe

The cap screws on to the threads where the original cap was, and is secured from removal by a pair of set screws. While this will not stop a determined thief, the whole idea is to make the run of the mill scumbag look elsewhere for an easy score.

Closed and you can see where the padlock goes

This is the padlock I use. No exposed shackle means bolt cutters are useless.

I have three of these locks from back when I had three 10'x30' storage units that held my stuff while we had our house built. 

Closed and locked until next delivery

I had never heard any stories of oil being stolen from homes, but I try to think like a criminal. Follow the oil truck around for the day and take note who has a nice full tank, then go after the easy pickings. Same thing with my generator being chained to the deck during a long outage. All you have to do is drive around and listen to where one is running and grab it. I try to make things difficult.