An unused heating-oil tank in Lower Makefield Township may come out, stay in service as a replacement, or, if the township allows it, be closed in place. The township’s homeowner guide covers all three. Confirm the name on the deed first. A Yardley mailing address can still be the township, not Yardley Borough.
Yardley mail is not the borough
Use the municipality on the deed. If it says Lower Makefield Township, the township guide below is the one to read. Yardley Borough has its own building and zoning office. If the property is in the borough rather than Lower Makefield Township, check with that office about the requirements for your tank. The township guide does not apply to Yardley Borough properties.
Yardley Borough FAQs name the borough building office. Lower Makefield’s forms page links the township guide.
What the township guide says
The township’s Common Questions about Residential Oil Tanks says yes: whether you are removing and replacing, removing permanently, or abandoning in place, you must obtain a township permit, and the Office of the Fire Service Director inspects the completed work. Switching the burner to gas or propane does not, by itself, close the tank. The guide says abandonment is not leaving a tank full of oil in the ground or in the basement.
For an outside underground tank, the guide says homeowners may abandon it, and it describes permanent closure as capping, filling with an inert solid such as foam, sand, or slurry, or removing the tank from the ground. It also says the guide’s authors do not treat removal of an already emptied and filled tank as required by law, while noting that a sale can still put pressure on the seller. That “not required by law” line is the township document speaking, not statewide law. The buying and selling page is the place for that distinction, and the abandonment page explains why filling a tank is a different job from taking it out.
Replacement has its own limits
The same guide is also a replacement document. It says a tank moved indoors or outdoors needs a level foundation, flood-zone anchoring where that applies, and a capacity no greater than 660 gallons, with extra clearance and vehicle barriers in the situations it lists. Those are township placement notes for a tank that stays in service. They are not instructions for digging out a buried tank. Read them in the PDF before planning a replacement.
If the tank is buried and the guide’s contamination section applies, the township points owners toward state cleanup standards and the state heating-oil reimbursement program. That program is for a qualifying release from an underground tank. It does not pay for ordinary removal. Start with the leaking-tank page if there is odor or staining, then the reimbursement page. A basement tank is the indoor removal problem, not that buried-tank program.