[na] House exploded

Natural gas in a home is one of the things that scare me. Invariably, the gas company has already investigated or 'a crew was on the way' when this happens.
 
weilke said:
Natural gas in a home is one of the things that scare me. Invariably, the gas company has already investigated or 'a crew was on the way' when this happens.
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Keep in mind that Electric incidents damage more homes yearly than Natural Gas. Also, LP is more often involved in the small amount of Gas incidents than Natural Gas. At least with our Natural Gas company, These are the true statistics we see yearly in our safety reviews. Also, you are correct that the crew is on the way or onsite in a lot of incidents. Generally, people smell gas but yet wait days or weeks to call instead of immediately, which makes the likelyhood of an significant issue greater. Keep in mind this is the same in Electrical issues, people wait until issues compound prior to calling. Over 70% of gas leaks in my service area ( Pennsylvania, DE, MD, VA, FL) are caused by excavators who damage our pipelines, most without calling 811 prior or spotting marked utilities.
 
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A guy I used to work with survived a house explosion. He and his son were watching TV, the gas line had cracked out in his front yard and seeped under the driveway into his basement. The water heater was on the opppsite corner from where they were, and they weren't injured. He rebuilt, and a few years later he got his son a metal detector for his birthday. They dug up all sorts of mangled house parts from the yard.
 
Matthew said:
A guy I used to work with survived a house explosion. He and his son were watching TV, the gas line had cracked out in his front yard and seeped under the driveway into his basement. The water heater was on the opppsite corner from where they were, and they weren't injured. He rebuilt, and a few years later he got his son a metal detector for his birthday. They dug up all sorts of mangled house parts from the yard.
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Interesting story but I've got a problem with it. Natural gas is lighter than air and does not sink into a basement. In other words the story doesn't make sense from a physics point of view. Of course there can be a leak in a basement...
 
Clark1961 said:
Interesting story but I've got a problem with it. Natural gas is lighter than air and does not sink into a basement. In other words the story doesn't make sense from a physics point of view. Of course there can be a leak in a basement...
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Dunno. The house blew up, was all over the news, saw him at work and said, "That was YOUR house?" FD, gas company, and insurance co said the leak was outside, gas got into his basement and pilot light set it off.
 
Matthew said:
Dunno. The house blew up, was all over the news, saw him at work and said, "That was YOUR house?" FD, gas company, and insurance co said the leak was outside, gas got into his basement and pilot light set it off.
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Agree with dunno. Obviously the investigators have facts that I don't have. Must have stunk something awful in the basement and out in the yard...
 
Gas explosions happen all the time. If the gas cannot escape the basement it will build up to dangerous levels. This is why new water heaters have flame arrestors on them.
 
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And the last words from the owner was "Something smells funny. Let me turn the light on and check it out."
If you smell gas, get out of the house and call from somewhere else. Many people call from their home and only leave when the company tells them to.
 
Just had the one year anniversary of a restaurant explosion in KC that killed a waitress. Underground gas line was nicked by a construction crew across the street. Evacuation order was a couple seconds too late, she didn't make it out.
 
What do you call an explosion in Chicago that levels 6 houses?

A good start.

I'm here all week, tip your waitress.
 
Clark1961 said:
Interesting story but I've got a problem with it. Natural gas is lighter than air and does not sink into a basement. In other words the story doesn't make sense from a physics point of view. Of course there can be a leak in a basement...
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Not sure how common it is, but it does happen. We lost some people locally.

There was a multi-million recall of pvc feed lines for that very issue. The manifacturer had to pay to dig up all the questionable lines, most of which had been placed 20+ years earlier.
 
Clark1961 said:
Interesting story but I've got a problem with it. Natural gas is lighter than air and does not sink into a basement. In other words the story doesn't make sense from a physics point of view. Of course there can be a leak in a basement...
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Propane, perhaps? Propane is heavier than air and will gather in low spots. The feed line from the tank is usually underground.

Dave
 
weilke said:
Not sure how common it is, but it does happen. We lost some people locally.

There was a multi-million recall of pvc feed lines for that very issue. The manifacturer had to pay to dig up all the questionable lines, most of which had been placed 20+ years earlier.
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Sounds similar to my friend's experience. He lived in a part of town where gas lines were laid at a particular time with a particular set of materials and methods that aren't done that way anymore. We had an especially dry summer that year and ground shifts caused gas lines to separate. His house was one of several with problems. Whole neighborhoods got dug up to get replacement lines.
 
Matthew said:
Sounds similar to my friend's experience. He lived in a part of town where gas lines were laid at a particular time with a particular set of materials and methods that aren't done that way anymore. We had an especially dry summer that year and ground shifts caused gas lines to separate. His house was one of several with problems. Whole neighborhoods got dug up to get replacement lines.
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Just looked it up. The pipe was made by Century utility products and installed between 71 and 77. What was really bizarre was that a year after Xcel energy dug up the yards to replace those faulty service lines, they had to dig them up again as the fitting they used to replace it was faulty as well.....

Today, they try not to have service lines enter the home below grade. If it does, there is a special seal to prevent gas from entering the home.
 
We've been paying extra to our utilities and our government to keep our infrastructure secure, updated, and free of defect. Like every other thing, the infrastructure only ever garners attention when it fails. We need to have a house blow up or a bridge collapse or a tunnel ceiling to fail and kill someone to get them to do anything about the aging infrastructure.
But not to worry. What we pay will go up so they can maintain our aging infrastructure to the style its grown accustomed to.
 
weilke said:
Just looked it up. The pipe was made by Century utility products and installed between 71 and 77. What was really bizarre was that a year after Xcel energy dug up the yards to replace those faulty service lines, they had to dig them up again as the fitting they used to replace it was faulty as well.....

Today, they try not to have service lines enter the home below grade. If it does, there is a special seal to prevent gas from entering the home.
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I spent some time yesterday trying to find that info of what happened here but didn't have any luck. I didn't think about it but now that you mentioned it, I am used to seeing gas lines and meters above grade.

He went to a FD open house a couple years afterward and the FD was handing out safety cards to the kids. Similar to baseball cards, they had pictures on the front and safety tips on the back. He saw one that said something like, "if you smell gas, get out of the house and call 911from a neighbor's house." The picture on the front was his house. The garage doors were near the curb, and there were flames coming from cracks in the ground and driveway.
 
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Matthew said:
I spent some time yesterday trying to find that info of what happened here but didn't have any luck. I didn't think about it but now that you mentioned it, I am used to seeing gas lines and meters above grade.

He went to a FD open house a couple years afterward and the FD was handing out safety cards to the kids. Similar to baseball cards, they had pictures on the front and safety tips on the back. He saw one that said something like, "if you smell gas, get out of the house and call 911from a neighbor's house." The picture on the front was his house. The garage doors were near the curb, and there were flames coming from cracks in the ground and driveway.
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Yes, a natural gas leak in the yard a few feet from the house will follow the piping through the concrete block below grade. Yes, in open air it will mix in, but underground it will take the path of least resistance. We had a house explode a few years ago killing a man after he finished talking to his wife on the phone. He said he was going down in the basement to check it out. Turned on a light switch and kaboom.

If one has nat or LP gas in their home, I always recommend a CO detector and a combustible gas detector. Most of my gas customers do not have them. Most of my customers have HP's including me, thankfully.
 
We had a trailer blow up out in the boonies here. The local TV crew besieged the local (natural) gas company about safety and they pointed out that neither they nor any other natural gas company services that area and the gas involved was propane from on-site tanks.

We had a massive explosion in the town I grew up in, but it was from welding equipment in the guy's garage. Leveled his house and tilted a few neighbors.

Nothing is as scary (and fortunately nobody died) as a high pressure distribution line going up. An entire apartment building in Edison, NJ got vaporized when we were living up there.
 
docmirror said:
What do you call an explosion in Chicago that levels 6 houses?

A good start.

I'm here all week, tip your waitress.
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Not funny. I know people in that neighborhood. Some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet.
 
About 10-15 years ago I was driving past a new subdivision that was under construction. A backhoe was working and had clipped a gas line. Even frtom my car I could hear the pressure behind that gas. The backhoe operator had run to get clear. A few minutes later, as I drove past again, FD and gas co were on scene. No one was hurt, nothing blew. My next door neighbor art the time worked for the gas co and got called out on that job to shut off the gas.
 
weilke said:
Just looked it up. The pipe was made by Century utility products and installed between 71 and 77. What was really bizarre was that a year after Xcel energy dug up the yards to replace those faulty service lines, they had to dig them up again as the fitting they used to replace it was faulty as well.....



Today, they try not to have service lines enter the home below grade. If it does, there is a special seal to prevent gas from entering the home.
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Our old neighborhood here in Colorado also got this treatment. Gas lines all dug up and replaced.

All the digging moved the soil enough to put large cracks in the street.

Water ingress then moved more dirt and three sewer lines broke.

Then more digging...

Four years of digging on and off up and down the whole street.
 
weilke said:
Natural gas in a home is one of the things that scare me. Invariably, the gas company has already investigated or 'a crew was on the way' when this happens.
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Me too.
While electricity may cause a fire, it doesn't violently explode, razing your house to rubble in a microsecond.
I have no gas in my house, of any kind.
 
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