A demonstration of why I'm happy we use heat pumps in our home occurred yesterday when a house in the next town to ours was destroyed by a gas explosion.
The news reports today said that the gas company (Keyspan) admitted that some kind of goof caused high pressure gas to be fed into to low pressure gas mains, with not unexpected results.
Jeff
One possible freak accident causing your house being destroyed is slightly reduced. What if the main in the street breaks and the gas follows up your sewer trench into the house. It happened around here. You'd better buy one of those composting toilets.
No form of energy used in a home is without some element of risk. It's a case of trading comfort and convenience against the risk of dying, however slight that risk may be. It is quite possible that there may be more electrical fires than gas fires. Does anyone have the figures on the number of deaths in homes caused by the different forms of energy?
Bob
Happened in Chicago a few years ago. Took out whole blocks. Seems that instead of having individual regulators on each house, Chicago allowed one regulator per few blocks. THe one regulator went bad and lots of fires resulted as the extra pressure caused the furnaces to shoot out flames.
IT happens. I can point out a few stories about electric heaters burning down houses too.
Every year at least one house blows up from gas. OTOH, 50,000 people are still killed in automobile accidents every ear and we still drive every day. Oil tanks, leak, people get electrocuted. None of these seem to make much news though.
If gas was available for my house, I'd hook up tomorrow. Thanks, I'll take your share.
Same thing happened here in Battle Creek, MI, a few years ago. Gas Co was working on outside plant, and connected a hi-pressure line to a low-pressure branch serving an older neighborhood. They had to activate their doomsday plan, call out all 3 shifts of fire and police, etc. 2 or 3 houses flat destroyed, several dozen damaged, and they had to shut off gas to most of the north side while they sorted it all out. Some blocks were without gas for a week or more, while they checked every street valve and every meter for damage, and did a free service call and relight for every house. Never saw any court suits about it, so I think the Gas Co. settled the claims as quick as they came in. Good thing it was daytime, and nobody died, and only minor injuries.
aem sends...
The house would have to be permeated with gas for an explosion like this. The owners had to be out to lunch or out of town.
When I lived just a few towns away from the town where this happened, the gas company had a slogan "Go modern, go gas". We already had gas heat, hot water, cooking etc. The house two doors away blew up. The slogan became " Go gas, go modern, go boom".
Charlie
Really a freak accident. I would guess your chance of being injured by a gas explosion (assuming you are following code) is about equal to the added chance of fire or electrocution due to a malfunction of your heat pump. Both are very remote. You have a far better chance of winning the lottery.
If you like explosions, a little research will find a number of situations where gasoline has contaminated sewer lines and blown up areas of towns.
My neighbors lawn mower caught fire, gee maybe I should get a goat instead.
In 1984, I was operating a service station I leased from the oil company. They owned the building, the tanks and the gas in them. I paid for gas through the pumps.
At that time (maybe still) the state required pressure testing of the tanks at regular intervals. This time the tank failed. Before they could release the pressure, 700 gallons of gas seeped into a 4 foot storm drain 30 feet away. It dumped into a creek a half mile away through a residential neighborhood. Major cleanup; major evacuation.
Contaminated soil was hauled away in sealed drums at $455 each. Excavation equipment without electrical systems was used to dig the soil out and later at the evaporation site to turn the soil daily. They were started with APU carts at least 200 feet away. Operators wore hazmat suits and respirators.
There is now a car wash on that site. Behind it is a 36" ventilation well with a suction fan on a 25' stack. I'm told the air/fuel mixture coming out is still combustible twenty-one years later
Exactly what happened here in MA.
I think one basement room filled with gas would be enough. How long it takes to fill a room to that degree I don't know, but apparently it is no more than the time from the "POP" to the explosion.
When the air force bombs a building, they don't have to set of little bombs throughout the building. A bomb that explodes in one room will do.
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.
I hear what you say, Bob.
But, since it would be pretty inconvenient for us to live without electricity, I do believe I am lowering our risks by not having an
*additional* flammable/flaming fueled system inside my house.I watched the electrical work being done when we had the place built, and I have the education and experience to know how to avoid creating dangerous electrical conditions when doing repairs or modifications myself.
That's why I wrote what I did in my OP. Nothing is totally risk free, but I'd just as soon live without gas or oil in my house than with it there, since I can keep the place comfortable warm for very little more fuel cost with our new heat pumps, and likely lower overall maintenance expenses than if I had a "furnace" in our home.
Jeff
Agreed. But, when a few pet dogs got electrocuted walking on wet pavement here in Boston within the last year, due to buried exposed live conductors, the papers and TV were full of the news about it for days.
And, some pet shops experienced a minor bonaza when they started selling rubber booties for fidos.
Jeff
Your welcome to it. As I just said in another post here, I think I'm reducing (But certainly not eliminating) our risks by sticking with just one fuel (electricity) in our home.
It happened here a few years ago too! It sticks in my mind because I had just pulled my oil furnace and switched to natural gas. A gent I worked with at the time thought I was crazy to put gas in my house. "Your house could blow up!" Then he cited where his neighbors house had blown up from a NG leak a few months before. Again the funny side of it all is the house did not have gas supplied to it! The main in the street leaked and the gas followed the water or sewer main into the house. I just countered with, "you are damned if you do and damned it you don't, so you may as well heat with gas!!"
When I think about it, I don't know of any home in the area, that was supplied with gas, ever blow up, except for the occasional intentional leak! We had on a few years ago where the guy beat his wife damn near to death then cracked a gas line in the house and left her for dead. She was able to get out of the house before it blew. The fire department found her laying in the back yard while putting out the fire. Greg
Yikes! I assume the tanks were underground, where did the leak occur? How did it get to the storm drain, or did not just migrate from the tank directly to the storm drain well? Was it leaded gas?
I'll bet it is! There are a few gas stations in my town that have histories of leaking tanks many years ago, and are still being remediated today. One leaked while it was a Chevron station, I don't even recall Chevron ever being in this part of the country (Massachusetts). The environmental engineers were able to track which plume was which by looking at what additives were in each brand of gasoline.
This is still preliminary, but apparently they heard a bang, smelled gas, and the son came outside. The explosion occured almost immediately after this, I think the timeline was very very short. I think the mother was already outside raking leaves, nobody else was home. They are lucky it happen in the daytime, there were no serious injuries.
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