Thread: Cooking gas leak..Dangerous

A dangerous condition was found!
I recently had the plumber come to my home for the yearly checkout of the plumbing and natural gas equipment including cleaning the burners of the water heater and furnace boiler.
Nothing unusual was found but they did notice a gas leak. They followed their sniffer and found a bad connection behind my stove which they fixed quickly.
It could have blown the place up if it the leak had been just a little bit larger!

Now I am old and my nose does not work well. I did notice a few months ago that my stove burners did not light quickly. I have had very bad respiratory troubles the last few months. I have been over sleeping and taking a lot of naps. No energy at all.
A low concentration of gas reduces the ability of the body to get oxygen to the brain. It also is a small enough concentration that the warning stink gas ( methl mercaptan) is not noticed. A lot of sneezing bouts may happen but mostly be blamed onto allergy season. Your basement workshop will be a lot less pleasant to work in and you don't know why. Gas is heavier than air so it flows downward. So the little kids and pets are most affected. And; it sinks into to the basement. A large concentration is may be noticed just before it become a stoichiometric contentration that will blow up if it hasn't already blown!

I do recommend that a gas heating specialist be invited to your home to check out all gas appliances. Your utility company may do it for no cost! I have the local, trusted, plumbers come to check all out as I have a pump and a septic system. Two hundred bucks yearly is a cheap price for my life and health.

Sincerely submitted
~Richard

Glad everything worked out. Always good to have your gas lines inspected once a year.

A house exploded in my town a few years ago. A gas leak probably caused it

Michael

I love gas stoves for cooking. Been stuck with electric for the past twenty years and I'm used to it now but nothing like adjusting he heat by looking at the flame. Glad you got the thing fixed before you blew the house up Geez. I would have mourned if all those eschers and coticules, had burned up ..... not to mention the j-nats......

Thanks for the warnings. You have made me think; and using gas for water heater, dryer and range I'll definitely will be calling someone to do an inspection on this 16 year old house. Thanks for posting.

One more story if it helps someone.

20 years ago, I used to live in Oklahoma in a house with gas central heating. I've seen new devices at the hardware store for detecting harmfull levels of carbon monoxide, but thought I could better spend the $40.00 somewhere else. One day I decided my family was worth it and bought one. That night after installing it the day before, the alarm went off at 3am, call the fire department and they confirm it wasn't a false alarm. They track the problem to the furnace air filter cover ( it wasn't seated correctly and it was allowing air from the burners to mix with the house recirculating air). After readjusting the cover and ventilating the house a bit, everything was normal. We where slowly being poison for about 5 days, that was when I changed the filter of the furnace last.

Longer sleeps, watery eyes at the end of the day and a tiredness is what My wife and I remember as been the signs of a carbon monoxide leak. Thanks to God almighty he gave me the desire to buy that CO alarm at the time that I did.
I was left a little dummer from it all, but I've never been smart, so it doesn't show. Double O

Originally Posted by Double0757

Thanks for the warnings.
snip.....
Longer sleeps, watery eyes at the end of the day and a tiredness is what My wife and I remember as been the signs of a carbon monoxide leak. Thanks to God almighty he gave me the desire to buy that CO alarm at the time that I did.
snip... Double O

Wonderful information! Thank you!