OT: Town gas -> Natural gas ?

While putting the world to rights over a pint of Theakston's Best last night, the subject got round to the above.

I was a youngster at school when the gas supply changed from "Town gas" (as manufactured from coal) to "Natural" (or "North Sea") gas; must ahave been the very late '60s? I can remember that all gas appliances had to be modified to suit the new gas, and we got new Bunsen burners; I can recall my science teacher telling us that otherwise the flame would have reached the ceiling.

ISTR there was like a 'D-day' when the conversion was done, but I can't remember or imagine how this was done in practice? Does anybody older than me recall? How big an area would they have had to do at once? How long did it take? and how did they get the whole system safely flushed out of the old stuff before everyone could switch on with the new?

Etc Etc...!

Reply to
Lobster
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It was definitely a slow creeping conversion with quite small areas converted. Aside from everything else, the mains increased in pressure.

For some reason, our new bunsen burners did not arrive. Lab technician simply put a bit of wire down the hole which restricted them sufficiently to work OK. (Not sure if soldered/brazed in place,or simply hammered!)

Reply to
polygonum

I'd guess at 68/69 for the ex Middlesex/ Greater London area where I lived. We were visited by surveyors looking at all the appliances and then kits of parts were delivered. On the day, swarms of fitters turned up and late afternoon we were all 'back on'. Realistically it can only have been groups of streets done in a day and somehow they must have zoned the different gas supplies. Curiously although a secondary school science pupil at the time, I don't recall issue of new Bunsen burners unless ours were re-jetted by the technician.

Much later on, in 1982 when I moved to southern Hampshire, the conversion appeared to have been carried out in the last few years as the remains of the kit of parts was still present and the boiler was relatively new. A bit of a google found this

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Conversion started in 1968 and completed in 1976.

Reply to
Bob Minchin

Gas supplies were quite localised in those days, there was no National Grid as there is today. It could be done on an area by area basis. I think that the new burners must have worked on coal gas as well as the natural stuff, because I can't remember having no gas for a week.

Initially the natural stuff didn't come from the North Sea, it came from Algeria. As our local paper put it,: "It is delivered by tanker to Mogador". Shades of a supertanker sailing down the A217!

Reply to
charles

Of roughly the same vintage so only really paid any attention when it became "our turn".

In urban areas almost street by street. IIRC it was a pretty slick operation, before the day some one came round and noted all the gas appliances you had, it didn't appear to matter how old those appliances were either, we may have had a cast iron late 1940's/early

1950's cooker that was converted. On the day man came round, turned off the gas, changed the regulator (and meter?) and also the jets on all the appliances. This happened for every place in a section.

There are places in the mains were they can connect a flare pole. Presumably once all the premises of a section were isolated they would start flaring off the gas in the mains and switch over the from a coal gas supply to natural gas one. There are normally multiple routes to feed a given section of mains, so that routine work on a section doesn't cut off a massive area.

The switch over for us was completed in a normal working day. How long it took to convert the entire country I don't know. JFGI?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Yes, this agrees with my memory. Quite an extraordinary operation in hindsight since they had to have kits for every single possible appliance including a gas poker and 1930s gas fire in my family home and, in an old friend's house, gas lights (he still retained them as a standby into the 1990s).

Reply to
Tony Bryer

They did it in areas certainly. The vital bit was the air gas mixture through use of different jets or regulators. Seems to have gone well in our house but we only had one fire and a cooker. Not so much central heating in those days.

I can remember people talking on the radio about the colour of the flame being important. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Yes there were more leaks after the conversion. I assume this was due to increased pressure. In the old days they would simply use the pressure from the gas holders to pressurise it but I seem to recall they went over to pumps around the same time as it was more stable on pressure. You don't see gassometers any more do you? Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

How did they arrange to have two supplies so that one street could have town gas and the next one natural?

-- Richard

Reply to
Richard Tobin

I've got vague memories of watching the flaring off of gas during the conversion process. My dad told me what was going on, and said that we'd know when all the town gas was out of the system because the flame would change from blue to yellow - which it did.

Reply to
Caecilius

But they didn't do every appliance! I remember we had two they could not or would not do. There was a portable heater with a sort of truncated pyramid shape burner which sat on a hearth. It had a flexible rubber pipe to the usual bayonet fitting at the side of the fireplace. I suspect this type was not allowed any more - early elf n safety presumably. However the other was a cute little floor mounted gas fire in the so-called spare bedroom. It is still there behind all the junk in my mother's house with it's label saying DO NOT USE. I did wonder if there was a limit to the number of appliances that they would convert for free? I can easily envisage my late father refusing to pay for the last one to be done.

Reply to
Tahiri

In message , Tony Bryer writes

I do remember the process, but not the details, as our house did not have gas. My Grandparent's house had gas lighting which was converted.

Reply to
News

Less dense, so leaks faster, and drier, which caused lots of the pipe jointing compounds to shrink and leak.

At my school, a dead-straight line of circular dead patches of grass appeared across the playing fields and cricket square, which was every joint in the underground gas main starting to leak.

That's because we thought we didn't need to store much - we were down to storing only 3 days worth at one point, but since we depend on imported supplies, that has been growing. However, the storage is now mostly done by pressurising it in the backbone network, and not so much in gasometers, although there are still some of those around.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

With us, the whole road was converted in a day - no gas during that day. An army of gas fitters from all over the country descended to convert all the appliances in every house at the same instant, whilst the network folks reconnected the street main across to the natural gas supply.

They failed to get my parent's boiler working that day, and dad redid the conversion when he got home from work. On town gas, it used an electric hot wire igniter to ignite a pilot, which somehow then triggered the gas for the main burners. Natural gas couldn't be lit by the same hot wire technique, and the conversion swapped all that out for a permanent pilot light.

We lived in Reading and were one of the last areas converted, but my grandmother in Odiham Hampshire was one of the first converted. They never got her gas fridge to work properly (pilot would keep going out), and after some years, the gas board bought her an electric fridge!

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

On 10/05/14 13:17, Brian Gaff wrote: You don't see

Quite a few in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells - not sure if they are active though...

Reply to
Tim Watts

IIRC this was not necessary. The burner changes were required as the calorific value of the gas changed, but an appliance could work with the 'wrong' type of gas, albeit with a flame that was a bit weaker than it should be.

Reply to
Phil Wieland

I always thought that natural gas was denser than town gas? The one being almost pure methane, the other a mix of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, a bit of methane and various other odds and ends.

Reply to
polygonum

Carbon monoxide is nearly twice as dense as methane, so it would depend on the proportions. But according to Wikipedia coal gas is typically 10% carbon monoxide and 50% hydrogen, so it would be lighter.

-- Richard

Reply to
Richard Tobin

Read the rest of my post, there is nearly always at least two ways to feed a given section. There would be a "normal" linear distribution set up but by manually opening/closing valves alternative feeds can be arranged. Think interlocking figure of 8's.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Less dense, so leaks faster, and drier, which caused lots of the pipe jointing compounds to shrink and leak.

At my school, a dead-straight line of circular dead patches of grass appeared across the playing fields and cricket square, which was every joint in the underground gas main starting to leak.

That's because we thought we didn't need to store much - we were down to storing only 3 days worth at one point, but since we depend on imported supplies, that has been growing. However, the storage is now mostly done by pressurising it in the backbone network, and not so much in gasometers, although there are still some of those around.

There's a couple in Orpington Kent just up the road from me and some over Bexleyheath way. There's a few at Sydenham too

Reply to
Nthkentman

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