Pipes About to Freeze

It was a Friday in December 2008, a week before Christmas. I was waiting for the blizzard to come. It had been forecast for days and I was just settling in for the weekend. Around 11am that day, I received a frantic phone call from an agent who is repping a buyer for a house I have listed. The Buyer's had their inspection the day before and she was calling to inform me that the oil tank was on empty and if it didn't get oil, the pipes were going to burst this weekend. WWWHHAATT?

Scrambling to find an oil company that would make an emergency delivery, I began to panic when the weather reports were getting worse. I was 35 minutes away from the house with the empty tank..............what was I going to do? The oil company informed me that they were taking the trucks off the road within the hour due to the storm. The woman at the office that I spoke to told me that I needed a plumber to winterize the house and I couldn't do it on a whim..........she ended up mentioning that I could put diesel fuel in until I could get a delivery in 3 days......................

Great!, i thought. I was off. I got in my car and began to traverse the already stormy roads. I carefully drove 20 miles to the exit. As I slowly pulled off the exit ramp, I gently slid into a gas station. They will certainly have diesel fuel and some giant red gas cans, or at least I thought. I ran into the mini mart and quickly purchased the 2 remaining gas cans, they were both a measly 1 gallon each. The woman at the oil company told me that 10 gallons should get me through the weekend if I set the houses heat low.

When I exited the gas station the brimming with cars filling their tanks before the storm took a major turn for the worse. I wasn't parked near a pump that sold diesel, so I left the gas station and decided that I could get it at the station up the road, which may be less busy since it is farther from the highway.

When I approached the next station I didn't see "diesel" advertised on the sign. I pulled in and parked my car. I got out and went into the mini mart and asked the clerk which pump sold diesel fuel. She told me that they didn't and pointed in the direction of the station that I had just come from. "The one down the street does..". Oh yes, great, of course. Back on the road a few minutes later, the snow was really picking up. Even though the ride back to the station was only a few miles, it was a very long trip since everyone was driving so slowly. I filled up my 2 cans and made my way towards the vacant and cold home. I emptied the fuel into the fill pipe from the outside of the house and then went in to check the pipes. The pipes had not burst and the oil tank still had enough into it to get through the weekend. I set the heat to 55 and would return the next 2 days to dump fuel into the fill pipe until the delivery on Monday.

As I made my way back home, I wondered if many agents actually do this to their clients homes. My Client had moved out a week ago and couldn't pay the bills any longer. According to him, there wasn't any money to pay for oil for the tank. The emergency delivery was coming out of my commission when the house finally sold, a hardship for a Realtor in a slow market. But if the heating system wasn't saved, then the contract would fall through and the house may never get sold. I was frustrated, but I felt great about being able to step up and help someone get on with their life.........I just hope that I will be able to get on with mine.