Gas vs. Electric Dryer

n.o@spam wrote:
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Learn to do a web search properly, your search is meaningless as others point out.
From the Consumer Product Safety Commmission and National Fire Protection Association:
<quotes> Most home fires start in living rooms. Second is bedrooms, third is kitchens.
The leading cause of fatal home fire is smoking, followed by: arson, heating equipment, electrical distribution equipment, and then children playing with fire.
The number one cause in home fire resulting in injury, however, is cooking equipment.
Cooking is the leading cause of home fires in the U.S. It is also the leading cause of fire injuries. Cooking fires often result from unattended cooking and human error, rather than mechanical failure of stoves or ovens.
Two of every three home heating fires in the U.S. in 1998, and three of every four related deaths, were attributed to space heating equipment. </quotes>
So, let's see. Most fires start in the living room and bedroom where you are extremely unlikely to find any natural gas equipment. The fires that start in the 3rd most likely place, the kitchen, aren't caused by equipment failure.
Of the fires caused by heating equipment most of the fires and even more of the deaths are due to space heaters. I've never seen a space heater that was run by natural gas, most of them are electric.

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Where I grew up, in western New England, gas space heaters were (and are) quite common. A lot of the housing stock was built before central heating was the norm, so places had no ductwork. Putting in a gas line was a relatively cheap retrofit - the line would feed a "gas and gas" stove (gas cooking and gas space heating) in the kitchen, probably a gas hot water heater also in a corner of the kitchen, and a gas space heater in the living room.
The kitchen stove space heater wouldn't have a fan to distribute the heat, but the living room space heater usually did. If you wanted heat in the bedrooms, you left the bedroom doors open so that warm(er) air could drift in from one of the heated rooms. The heaters were thermostatically controlled but you couldn't set a temperature - settings were marked Off, 1, 2, 3...,9, Max. The spiffier models had a glass panel in front so you could see the fire. While visually somewhat obtrusive, they're pretty cosy.

On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 10:55:34 -0500, Bill Seurer <Bill_AT_seurer.net> wrote:
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I'll buy the above statement. Plus, at least in my area, ALL recent building explosions or fires caused by natural gas were caused by a leak in the main OUTSIDE of the building. The gas would typically seep thru the ground into the basement and then became ignited.
The fault in most cases was with a contractor who didn't "call before he dug". Sometimes the damage wasn't immediately obvious but took days or even weeks to become evident.
A small gas leak in an appliance rarely causes a problem. It takes a lot of gas in the air to reach the right intensity for ignition. Since the gas companies add the smell to the gas (without the chemical additive, it would be hard to detect), the smell becomes overpowering long before an explosive mixture is reached.
For a fairly balanced discussion of the safty aspects of various fuels, you'd have to add in all those folks killed via electrocution each year.
Doug

Bill Seurer <Bill_AT_seurer.net> wrote in message
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Billy calm down, don't fight the Doctors. The Doctors are your friends, they are here to help you.

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Eastward Bound) writes:
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Right, this clinches it.
Please don't feed the troll, everyone.

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Eastward Bound) writes:
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Um, I didn't see anybody say that. In fact, I said exactly the opposite, i.e., that the reason why it seems like there are so many gas explosions reported in the media is because they happen so infrequently that they're a big deal, so every one of them gets reported.

Bill Seurer <Bill_AT_seurer.net> wrote in message
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Bill, back in the mid 90s England was building a bunch of flats (apartments/condos) that were about 30 floors high 50 max. They were based off of a type of construction technology that originated from a northern part of Europe that DID NOT use natural gas. But the most important thing is that they were so cheap to build and they went up rapidly with the cranes because they were so simple in construction.
Big mistake. Even though it was a great idea to solve much of England's housing shortage problems, all of these high rises were flawed.
They were built like a house of cards because every section of wall and floor all comes together like a puzzle, and gravity plays a big role in keeping it all together. (Some of these buildings were spared when they updated them with reinforces to hold the sections of walls and floors together)
This works differently then what is common in north America where we use big columns that are the main support for the building. The outer shell would be to keep out the elements only and didn't support themselves.
So The British went ahead and built all of these high rises and were very exited about it because now they had cheap affordable housing for many.
The big mistake is that they also installed gas lines and gas appliances into these buildings. About a month after construction of some of the first buildings all hell broke loose when one of the residence left their stove running with no flame (told ya so). The single apartment at the mid section of the building exploded. Because the place was built like a house of cards there was a domino effect. Not the whole building fell down on itself but 1/4 of it was missing in the corner where the apartment had exploded. There was a bunch of deaths and fatalities.
They made another wrong decision when they decided to simply shrug it off as an accident as if it couldn't happen again. They couldn't be more wrong.
Some time later it happened again (natural gas explosion), this time a lot worse. And I can still see in my head a poor couple who lived to tell about it when their apartment fell down from the rest of the building. "My husband jumped on top of me and said I love you and that the flat (apartment) was falling."
After that they started making some big changes.
Most of the new apartment buildings where torn down deemed as unsafe. Only one or two of them that weren't built that tall were spared. All they had to do was put in reinforces or fasteners that held each wall and floor section together instead of just relying on gravity to do the job. And of course in the end they ended up removing all gas appliances and infrastructure and installed all electric's in it's place.
This was a most unfortunate incident. Two incidents that didn't have to happen. If it's comforting to anyone, at least we might learn from these horrific experiences. The company that built the buildings went belly under and is still in debt till this day.

On 24 Jun 2003 21:14:43 -0700 snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Eastward Bound) wrote: <snip>
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<snip> I saw that on TV. Really peculiar looking; all the apartments on one corner neatly sheared off.

(Eastward Bound) wrote:
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This only goes to show just how dangerous Gas used in the home can be.
EastBound-

On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 14:23:20 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@kamens.brookline.ma.us (Jonathan Kamens) wrote:
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The real problem with porches is that people just drive them too damn fast!

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Jim Kent wrote:
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Remember, never, ever let off the throttle when driving your porche around the corner. Trailing throttle oversteer is not to be triffled with. :)
JazzMan

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Usually only with smaller houses though. Most of the time, they do not reach all of the way around.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices.

On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 14:23:20 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@kamens.brookline.ma.us (Jonathan Kamens) wrote:
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Facetious, but a ring of truth in some cases. My question is how at least 69 people (12 dead, 57 injured) fit on the porch in question. Assuming an average 120 pounds (probably low) per person, that's over four tons. Even as dead weight, that's a fair load, not to mention movement. Nobody would think of parking two compact cars on that porch and expect it to stand up.
Jeff

On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 01:41:25 GMT
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children would

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The porch which collapsed was on the third floor, and there were porches on the two floors beneath it with people on them. My understanding is that most of the people who died were people on the lower porches who were crushed by the porches collapsing from above.

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Actually, you can reduce your theoretical load by a bit - http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/?ArIDv228&SecID=2 Chicago -- Officials in Chicago say it appears most of the people who died in a fatal porch collapse were crushed on porches below.
A dozen people were killed in the early morning collapse and as many as 45 others hurt, some critically.
Police say as many as 50 people may have been packed onto the wooden third-floor porch in the city's affluent Lincoln Park neighborhood, which is usually packed with young people on weekend nights.
Officials say there may also have been beer kegs on the porch.
One woman who was in the apartment's kitchen at the time says the party-goers were mostly friends in their early 20s. She says "the floor just dropped out from underneath them.''

On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 19:42:49 -0700, Bob Ward
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Tragic though it is, it makes you wonder why SOMEONE didn't have the brains to clear the porch --- even in my early 20s, I think I'd have realized that was unsafe.
But - having lived in a college town for 10 years - it does seems as if young people have no sense of their own mortality, and lot of them have no common sense either.
Pat (in old curmudgeon mode)

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Because anyone who'd say such a thing would be dismissed as fussy, paranoid, and a party-pooper.

On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 13:37:06 GMT, Jim Kent
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I suppose so. Tragic.
I'm very glad my daughter is grown up (in her mid-30s) - old enough to have sense.
Pat

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The porch that collapsed was on the 3rd floor, and it took the 2nd and first floor porches with it. Apparently, the 2nd floor porch also had a number of people on it.