Weve been having record rains. While watching some of the flood damages on the tv news, I noticed many Natural Gas meters are under water by the flooded homes. I was wondering if this posed any risk? I know they are vented, so while they are under water, the venting will not work. Also, will water enter the pipes thru the vents?
I'm not flooded, nor do I have Natural Gas, but I'm curious about this.
NG pipes have about 25PSI in them, the pipe would need to be quite deep before water could overcome that pressure and enter them. The vent is only open if pressure builds to greater than it should be. In typical floods it will just bubble out. The vent is also one way so unless there was a broken gas pipe, the system will remain sealed.
Remember that flaming gas leaks after the Katrina hurricane. It looked like a pool of water bubbling violently with flames all about the surface. Pretty cool and fearsome.
gas pressure in homes is at most a few ounces, so water can easily enter.
gas companies know what to do, and will get everything right before turning gas back on.
i heard they put vacuumn pumps on some lines.
"gas pressure in homes is at most a few ounces, so water can easily enter."
The pressure in the gas company pipes running down the street are relatively low and less than 10 psi. The presure is reduce to something on the order of 10" of water by a regular on the "company side" of the gas meter. These regulators are vented and if they are underwater they might permit higher than normal gas pressure to enter the gas meter.
The meters themselve are completely sealed except for the inlet and outlet pipes. Unless someone let a stove burner on, I don't see how water could get into the gas pipes from the customer side.
"gas companies know what to do, and will get everything right before turning gas back on."
Indeed.
That's their job.
i heard they put vacuumn pumps on some lines.
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Here is one you may not have heard before. Before I retired, I worked at a gas utility. Sometimes dirt would get in a line when it was dug up or any other reason. Small lines such as 1/2 plastic services would have to be dug up and replaced to prevent dirt from finding its way into appliances because they had no way to ensure dirt was not stuck in the line. They found that (this was suggested by a female pipe fitter) putting a tampon in the pipe and using compressed air to blow it out the other end would clean out the pipe thoroughly. After that all maintenance trucks carried a box of tampons with them.
educe to something
ater could
ho ho.
my best friend has run his vehicles on compressed natural gas since the 1972 gas crisis,.
he had to add heaters to his regulators, in the summer water or moisture enters the gas lines and would freeze up his regulator,
not a winter problem, apparently the crews are more careful then, as it would cause service outages. moisture enters during repairs
in a flood appliances float, wierd stuff occurs and water can enter. meters often have regulators vented to air, but in a flood high water can get in everywhere.
reduce to something
water could
Yup. Recall seeing, during WWII some UK cars where drivers put large very low pressure gas-bags on tops of their cars and filled them from the gas mains. Gas then was coal-gas made from coal, also producing coke. Coke looks like coal full of holes; is lighter than coal and mainly carbon and was often used to fuel heating and hot water furnaces and for industrial purposes.
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