KABOOB!! A Gas Explosion Close To Home

[krw]

No, I don't remember those days, Stormin'.

[krw]

You're a liar.

[Doug Miller]

"Pete C." wrote in news:52b1d9be$0$47869$862e30e2 @ngroups.net:

And so you assume that *all* of those fires were "explosions".

Bullshit.

Look at the details, specifically:

-- "... in which natural gas was the type of material first ignited", a category which clearly includes fires that occur while cooking on a gas stove

-- "Leading equipment involved: Stove"

-- "Leading area of origin: Kitchen"

All of which leads to the obvious conclusion that the problem is careless cooking, not the fuel used for doing so.

Obvious, that is, to anyone who doesn't have an a priori bias and an axe to grind.

Bullshit again. As CLEARLY indicated in the document that YOU cited, most residential gas- related fires started as cooking fires, not leaks. That document doesn't say anything at all about leaks.

Or explosions.

You mean like the cook turning on the burner? That's included in the category of "natural gas [is] the material first ignited."

No, it is not at all reasonable to assume that, for the reason I just explained above. And that's all it is: an assumption on your part, completely unsupported. That document says NOTHING about explosions, Pete. Nothing at all. It's talking about *fires*.

Your claim of 4000+ residential gas explosions per year is complete bullshit, totally without foundation. As I noted in an earlier post, if the rate were that high, we'd be seeing one about every 2.5 weeks here in the Indianapolis area. The last gas *explosion* I remember hearing about was about a year ago -- a deliberately set insurance fraud. If there really were over 4000 explosions per year in the U.S., we'd have had at least twenty more since then.

That. Just. Doesn't. Happen.

[DerbyDad03]

As long as everyone is trying so hard, I'll give it a try. ;-)

2110 gas + 1170 LP = 3280. A very minor nit.

Actually, that PDF says "estimated annual average" of 3280 in 2003-2007.

True, it's not 4000, and it's not explosions, but is "per year", at least the way I understand "annual average".

[Doug Miller]

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

You're right, I missed that phrase.

OK, it's per year. But it still says fires, not explosions.

The claim of 4000+ residential gas explosions per year is complete bullshit.

[DerbyDad03]

...snip...

Why did you leave off the last line?

-- leading factor contributing to ignition: Leak or Break

Which document are you reading? The one I am looking at specifically says "Leading factor contributing to ignition: leak or break"

...snip...

[Doug Miller]

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Leak includes a burner that's not burning.

gas-

[Cindy Hamilton]

Bwah, hah, hah.

Michigan.

Not enough sun.

Not going to split wood or buy pellets.

Have a perfectly functioning gas furnace which I'm not going to abandon for a much more expensive heat pump.

I'm not going to get rid of my gas stove, grill, or water heater, either.

Cindy Hamilton

[DerbyDad03]

That doesn't explain why you said "That document doesn't say anything at all about leaks." For both LP and nat gas it says the leading contributing factor was leaks and breaks.

I'm not pushing back (or forth) on the safety of gas, I'm simply trying to determine if we are looking at the same document because I'm seeing statements in the doc that I'm reading that don't coincide with what you are saying.

[Pete C.]

Geothermal heat pumps work quite nicely in cold climates.

[Pete C.]

Clearly you lack the intelligence to understand the dynamics of gaseous fueled fire incidents. Go back to high school science class.

[Doug Miller]

"Pete C." wrote in news:52b1ea57$0$47753$862e30e2 @ngroups.net:

Clearly you lack the intelligence to differentiate between your assumptions and actual facts.

And it actually is you who lacks the understanding of "gaseous fueled fire incidents", not me. Nowhere nearly all such incidents are explosions; most are merely fires. You're clearly unaware that for an explosion to occur, the fuel/air ratio must fall into a fairly narrow band.

If there were actually that many explosions, don't you imagine it would *say* explosions?

There's a *reason* the document talks about fires, not explosions.

[Doug Miller]

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I didn't read it as carefully as I should have; I was mistaken about leaks.

But not about explosions vs. fires.

[Cindy Hamilton]

They cost too much. My husband can install a regular forced-air furnace.

Even if I replaced my furnace with a heat pump, I'd still have the stove and gas grill (and possibly the water heater).

Clearly, I don't believe that gas presents a statistically significant danger. We've had this exact discussion before, and neither of us was convinced of the other's position.

Cindy Hamilton

[DerbyDad03]

This is just a question...

When I light my stove, the gas comes from the burner head, a spark ignites the flowing (and floating) gas, things go POOF! and the burner is lit.

Isn't that an explosion prior to the fire?

If there is a gas leak in my gas pipe and a sparks causes that gas to ignite and my kitchen catches on fire, can we not equate the 3280 fires with "explosions", or at least some of them? An explosion doesn't mean the house has to be lifted off the foundation.

Seems to me that there are two ways to have fire with a gas leak as the initial cause: a flame applied directly to the leak or a spark causing a (minor) explosion POOF! and then a resulting fire. Seems like there would be more POOFs before a fire caused by a gas leak than direct contact with a flame.

[Doug Miller]

DerbyDad03 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Not really, no.

Some of them, probably. All of them? Or even nearly all? Then the document would be talking about explosions, not fires. Explosions can occur only in a fairly narrow range of fuel/air mixtures; either little fuel or too little oxygen, and combustion will not be sufficiently rapid to produce an explosion.

[Doug Miller]

[e-mail] (Cindy Hamilton) wrote in news:O4nsu.341$wZ.31 @newsreading01.news.tds.net:

You won't ever convince Pete of your position, because he's an anti-gas kook whose mind is already made up.

And he won't ever convince you, or anyone else, of his position because he doesn't know what he's talking about. There simply are not 4000+ residential gas explosions per year in the U.S. That's something that Pete made up.

[Pete C.]

The NFPA says otherwise.

[Pete C.]

That figure is per year, 3,280 nat gas and L.P. fueled incidents per year, every year during the noted period. Nearly 9 incidents every day on average, though they will be weighted more towards the winter months in much of the country.

[Pete C.]

The vast majority of those leaks are going to build a fair amount of fuel/air mixture before they find an ignition source. The explosion may range from just blowing out windows, to leveling the home and it's neighbors, but you can quite reasonably surmise that most of the incidents include some level of explosion. Fortunately in many of the cases people recognized the leak and got out before the explosion and/or fire. The count of course doesn't include the leaks that were contained without ignition.