Holy Crap It's Gone

[littlesmokey]

I think we can all learn something from this. If you can get by the commercial, what it shows is real frightening.

http://connect2utah.com/content/fulltext/?cid=58121

I have already added it to another thread, so I hope this isn't redundent for some of you

 

[Backwoods Savage]

We had something very similar a couple years back when a home exploded killing several people. It was a gas leak. And people say wood burning is dangerous....

 

[Dune]

Every year in Mass, at least one house is blown to smithereens by a gas leak. My brother is a master gas fitter/plumber, but he will only hook up the water side of any gas units he puts in and lets the gas company pipe and service the units. He doesn't want the liability, the service call backs or the guilty consience if something goes wrong. People who know I was workerd for him for many years often ask me to do small gas jobs which I flatly refuse.

 

[rowerwet]

I hooked up my tankless hot water heater, and then soaked each connection with leak detector and checked and double checked every few min for the next couple of hrs, until no bubbles were present. However I normally work with high pressure oxegen and nitrogen at work, but even still a good spit on the connection will show you most leaks.

 

[drizler]

It's hard to imagine someone not smelling that nasty stink of leaking propane. To do that the place must have really reeked to high heaven. Too bad though. I always just use some good old dish detergent to check for leaks just like I do looking for a leak in a car tire.

 

[littlesmokey]

A little update and speculation. There sister and brother are doing well. She is out of the hospital, he has 40% burn coverage and some crushing injuries and is still in the hospital, but will recover.

The curious facts are, the service company for the propane supplier was at the house the day before the explosion. They had scheduled a work crew for the next day to do some service work. The occupants were aware of a problem and had acted. Apparently, it was not serious enough to make emergency repairs. Based on the appearance of the home remains the following is my speculations:
A problem was found. Most likely an underground leak. Instead of shutting down service they were told to monitor the use. The age of the home suggests it had a basement. The build up of gas would have to be there, which for obvious reasons was not visited since the leak started. The heavier than air characteristic kept the gas low and away from the occupants noses. Without detectors it simply built up to the critical mass. It may have been started by a spark from the water heater or the furnace, but the force of the blast made kindling of a brick home.

I do not know the service provider, but in the past there have been charges against one in this area of less than adequate safety and care. The provider lost a big one when a tank leak migrated down a slope into the crawlspace below a mobile home and killed members of a family. Parts of the trailer were found a quarter mile away.

 

[rowerwet]

ya know, Edison did a lot of his work to bring us electricity to replace the gas company, after they shut off his gas more than once when he didn't pay on time. Back then gas lamps lit your house.

 

[jdscj8]

Wow glad to hear there doing alright, thats amazing they lived, most aren't so lucky. Unlike Natural gas Propane is heavier then air, it goes down to the lowest point it can find then fills up the room, we had a Propane leak in the shop about 5 years ago and didn't know, no smell till i crawled under a tractor then i could smell it, Propane don't have a smell they add it for safty, sometimes its strong and sometimes its not, after that we took the heater out Propane scares me. JD

 

[drizler]

I can't see how they couldn't smell it. A little bit and you can smell it all over the place, even upstairs. That's how I tell when to change my tank for the dryer. When the tank starts getting empty you can begin to smell that good old propane stink all the way upstairs. It is really hard not to notice once you smelled it a time or 2.

 

[TreePapa]

It's amazing that the propane co. allowed this situation to remain. If I were to call So. Calif. Gas Company now and tell them I smelled a gas leak, they would be out winthin hours, and if they felt there was a leak that was not their responsiblity (i.e., anything my side of the meter), they would shut the gas off and would NOT turn it back on until the leak had been repaired. They don't "F" around. If you have a gas leak, you get it fixed or you don't get gas.

Peace,
- Sequoia

 

[rowerwet]

we came home to a cold house once, the gas truck made a delivery and put in X number of gallons, the same amount as a full tank will hold, since we weren't home and they couldn't verify that any pilot lights were lit, they shut the bottle off and left a note for us to call them to come turn it on. I found it an irritation at the time, but understood it better after they explained why on the phone.