buster, the fan is a plugin, cable on the right of the hearth- unplugged
Ergophobia, Have a bunch of oil furnaces,
there is oil left in the lines, and tank(very little but its there) it spreads hugely
when any leaks,
the epa goes nuts,
carefully drain the lines and tank, and have a lot of 'kitty litter' (dunno if it is kitty litter, the furnace techs call the absorbent kitty litter) on hand JustInCase
heating oil is diesel fuel, there is no distinction between 10000L spilled around a petrol station in-ground tank, and half a cup spilled when dismantling the heater, may be considered an A class contamination, that is an expensive fix
all it takes is someone to notice an oil odour any time the smell remains (if there is a leak)
I noted in the picture that the line runs uphill from the tank to the hole thrugh the wall, there is likely as much oil in the tank as the height of that line
I noted the oil line punches through the chimney, makes the chimney a nogo for directly putting an open fire, probably a liner up the inside, easy-peasy to do, but merely patching the hole with cement/silicone/sealer/anything would last very little before the chimney weakened.
s/steel liner & fireplace insert would likely increase the effectiveness of the fireplace, open fires suck -for efficiency (edit:: but are gorgeous)
edit2:
gemtec are one of our local cleanup compamies, they do our environmental assessments, the image of the backhoe digging out tonnes of earth, 5row left, was a small oil spill, they had to make sure they got it all, friends spilled 70L, from leaking drain tap, $100 000 epa cleanup
(don't spill any)
(click)
