cut gas pipe

[fred]

Serious explosion bellied caused by cut gas pipe. How ? Presumably it was in error but what would you be doing for that to happen?

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

fred pretended :

Perhaps a bit of plumbing or heating - a copper gas pipe looks identical to a water pipe.

Maybe a case for a regulation suggesting gas pipes out to be clearly identified, as they often are on commercial premises?

[Andy Burns]

"criminal investigation"

[GB]

Criminal investigation - the police might have in mind Gross Negligence Manslaughter, for example.

Seeing as how the people who lived in the house are still in a critical condition, there may never be any prosecution. And, what would it achieve anyway?

Bearing in mind that the explosion was at 2AM, the most likely scenario is a very small nick in the pipe that let gas accumulate once everyone had gone to bed. I take my hat off to anyone able to work out the cause of the explosion in that wreckage.

[Steve Walker]

Other options are an attempted insurance job or destroying the house to prevent it falling into the hands of an ex. I'm sure there are many more.

Possibly, although it's easy enough to identify in many houses - with gas coming straight through the wall to the meter and then from there usually only going to the living-room fire, the cooker in the kitchen and the boiler (often in the kitchen), with the latter two often a single run. No gas upstairs and, in a house with suspended floors, the route of each pipe downstairs can be clearly seen.

[Roger Hayter]

It is a shock in a 1920s house to cut a thin walled 1/2" lead pipe under the upstairs floorboards and find it is still connected to the gas supply. DAMHIKT Not sure how many of the 3/8" lead pipes embedded in the plaster and folded over at the end were still connected as the supply from the meter was replaced at that point. The strange thing was that the pipe out of the meter was already copper and it was not immediately obvious where it was connected to the old lead.

[charles]

my parents' house had gas upstairs for the over basin water heater in two bedrooms.

[Roger Mills]

ISTR that the cut pipe was next door - *not* in the house where the little boy was killed.

[Fredxx]

Copper melts at a very high temperature, I'm sure a nick in a pipe would remain visible.

Perhaps gas bubble testers should be mandatory?

I disturbed a lead pipe carrying gas some years ago which created a leak.

Thankfully the floorboards were up and I could smell the gas a few hours later, to discover the sweated T-joint was poor quality and could see a small gap between the pipes.

[John Rumm]

The place I grew up in (built late 19th century) had gas pipes embedded in most of the walls for gas lighting.

[John Rumm]

I did that by hammering a floor board nail in one side of a pipe and out of the other :-)

(Mother had just had all the gas pipes replaced, and I was going round re-fixing the floor boards. One board was a bit mangled in the corner, so I nailed nearer the middle of the board. That went in rather too easily. Only then did it occur to me why - the new pipes were not beneath the suspended floor, but sat in notches in the top of the joists, and in this case parallel to the floor board)

Listening carefully for the faint hiss, followed by a small of gas was enough evidence in this case.

[Chris Hogg]

That's what I heard also. So not obviously an attack on the occupants of the property that exploded.

[Richard]

and you looked sooo innocent in your recent pic. ;)

[Bob Eager]

Our house is 1903. There are still lead pipes in some of the walls. I removed the right angle pieces sticking out of the wall (they aren't capped and are definitely not live).

THe only live pipe in the house is copper, circa 1988. One to the boiler, and one to near a fireplace (now capped).

[Andrew]

Would the scrap value of the lead be worth more than the cost of redecorating after removing it ?

[alan_m]

My 1908 house originally had lead water pipes and iron gas pipes.

The copper gas in my house now has yellow tape with gas written on it.

[John Rumm]

I probably was then :-)

[S Viemeister]

In my parents' turn-of-the-last century house, when my Dad decided to change the light fitting on the newel post at the foot of the staircase (an ornate bronze statue, holding a lightbulb aloft) he discovered that the fake torch the statue was holding had once been a real one, fed by a gas line which was still there, and still connected. The top floor of the house had combination gas and electric light fittings - gas pointing up, electric pointing down.

[newshound]

Similarly, as I found out when chasing a wall to rewire my first 1890's house in the 1970's. All the lighting wiring to switches was cotton/rubber single strands in wooden surface mount channelling (with a divider between live and neutral). At least the power circuits were lead sheathed.

[Tim+]

Judging by news reports, by cutting it deliberately.

Tim