Gas leak at furnace

Sep 12, 2006 5 Replies

I smell a bit of natural gas somewhere near my gas forced air furnace in my basement. I can't seem to locate it.



My question is: WIll the gas company come to my house and do the detecting for me? Will they fix the leak as part of their service to customers? I live in upstate NY near Albany.



Thanks


Yes. Call them immediately.

If the "fix" just means tightening up some pipes and pipe joints, yes, they probably will. Rochester Gas & Electric did just this for us 3 years ago when I kept smelling strong gas odor in my basement. The guy tightened up two or three joints, voila, problem solved.

If, however, you have a faulty furnace or other gas appliance, no, they won't, and instead, they'll red-tag the appliance until you get it repaired properly.

Regardless, call them now for the detection service. It's for your own safety.

Agreed. Call them immediately. Then go to your kitchen and mix up a big old batch of water with a huge amount of dish detergent in it -- maybe 1:10. Get a brush or rag and go down to your pipes and get everythign good and wet. All joints. All pipes. Everything. Look for bubbles. Just don't put out your pilot. Search the whole system and see if you find it. Check your stove and water heater and the lines to them, too.

Dish detergent is not the best stuff to use to detect leaks. They make special stuff for this but if your hardware store doesnt sell leak detector get a big bottle of bubble blowing liquid. OF course you can go around and tighten all the joints and see if the odor goes away.

"Jimmie D" wrote in news:W2QWg.22338$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews3.bellsouth.net:

...or create a bunch of new ones.

Around here they respond FAST to gas odor leak reports, any leaks found they gas company red tags your home and cut off all gas service.

now you must get a licensed plumber and basically replace all your gas line.

the requirement is a 90 PSI test for 12 hours, whereas normal gas pressure is a few ounces.

plumbers charge more to disassemble and clean pipes its cheaper to just replace all lines...

labor costs more than new gas pipe.

my elderly neighbors had this happen in the winter 4500 bucks got them fixed in 24 hours...

if you detect a odor yopur better off calling a plumber......

at least in pennsylvania

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