Hello All,
Been reading all of this with great interest.
A couple years ago I came home from work at about 5:30pm and found the
local cops and fire department all over my house!
The house was fine, but every window and door was opened.
My wife wasn't home yet thank God.
I went to the first cop I saw and here is what I found out.
Apparently, there was a gas leak in my house.
The meter reader had come to read the meter that day, detected the leak
and call the FD.
So what happened you may ask?
Well, my house has a basement whose walls are cinder block. This was
common in the early 1950's when my house was made and every single
house in my little suburb is build the same way. Well, where the gas
line comes through the wall it passes through the open space created by
the cinder block. The pipe itself was cast iron.
Now, add 40+ years of a pipe suspended in air, with moistures and what
happens? We all know the answer- corrosion!
The pipe rots away. Eventually, it becomes a leak. The leak fills the
inside of the column it is standing in and the gas 'pours over' into
the next set of cells, and the next until the entire wall of the
basement is full of gas, then it spills out and begins to fill the
basement.
The gas man caught it at that point.
The FD tells me that 3-4 houses are lost every year in Cincinnati in
this manner. It is a little publicized fact.
The answer-
A stainless steel pipe, which the gas company installed that very day.
So-
Moral to the story-
If you have a cinder block foundation, have the check the pipes where
the pass through the wall for any leakage-
before the house attempts to launch itself into space.
Take Care,
Charles.
Joe Savard wrote:
In a message dated 3/4/2007 5:28:10 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
MJRAGUSE writes:
So what did you do to find all of the leaks and where they
were actually leaking? Let me guess....dig up all of the streets and
yards again? No?.. then I guess just see how many more explosions
would happen and if none..all were found the first winter.
good story...
Marv, and others,
For a few years after that, a regular feature in the village
was a "Sniffer" truck from the gas company. It patrolled all the
streets with what looked like a large vacuum cleaner nozzle protruding
from the front, by the curb. Since we had no more explosions, I guess
they got it under control.
By the way, when a home blows up, it is REALLY NOISY. The
first one was across the lake, in Swiss Village, (2-3 miles) and it
made me run out of the store, looking for what happened. I felt my
large cement block building shake.
(Oh, by the way for all you others on the list, Marv and I
share a town.)
Joe
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