Tank Search – Portland, OR Area

Get a Tank Search in the Portland, OR Area – Book Online or Call 503-939-9585

Find out if there is an reported oil tank on your property in Oregon by checking the following resources. If you live in Vancouver or elsewhere in Washington, you can look for signs of heating oil use or schedule a tank locate but there are no public databases to search. Getting a tank search may be the only way to find out if there are tanks.

Occasionally two (and in extra rare cases three) underground storage tanks can be present on the same property. So getting a tank search is still recommended on every home that hasn’t had one. Homes that were built before 1975 (or are in neighborhoods that existed before 1975) are at high risk for having buried oil tanks. Getting a tank search done is usually in your best interests if you don’t have a record of one.

Record Search

Visit this DEQ page for more info. You contact the DEQ Heating Oil Tank department via email at hotinfo@deq.state.or.us or call the help hotline at 503-229-6170.

The new DEQ search page is a bit more challenging to use than the previous LUST/LIST pages.

The new leaking tank search can be viewed at: https://ordeq-edms-public.govonlinesaas.com/pub/pub-rcd/projects and the voluntary certification list can be seen at: https://ordeq-edms-public.govonlinesaas.com/pub/pub-rcd/permits remember not to hit enter or it will search the line break.

If the Oregon DEQ has certified the decommissioning of an oil tank, it will be listed on one of the above data sets.

Unless it was very recent the Oregon DEQ will list all certifications and contaminated soil samples in the above databases. However homes that were decommissioned with no contamination but who did not pay to become certified will not show up on these lists.

PortlandMaps.com – Search for your address, then click on the ‘permits’ button. Scroll down to see if there are any permits for ‘Underground Storage Tanks’. Be sure the permit is for the correct address and not a nearby address. These permits will only exist for homes in close-in Portland, as seen in the image below.


You can also look through the home yourself to try and identify any signs of heating oil use in the past.

Because second tanks occur in maybe 1% of homes with oil heat. You should consider getting an oil tank search if you haven’t had one.

Tank Search

The oil tank search involves a search through the above listed public records and may include searching though historic imagery and neighborhood trends. The on-site investigation searches for signs of oil oil plumbing as seen in the signs of oil page. Then we use a variety of metal detectors and magnetometers. We have special other tools for extreme situations and investigation.

The report will include anything large and metal that is underground. This includes things like: Metal cesspools, septic tanks, home gasoline tanks, second underground oil tanks, and buried car doors.

Easy Tank Search Scheduling Online