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Pikesville MD Explosion 1

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Gas explosions in houses often results in complete demolition. Once one falls down any other using it for support also collapse.

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Doesn't look like much of a down component there. I think it all went up.

“What I told you was true ... from a certain point of view.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Return of the Jedi"
 
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I wonder if most of the gas was in the center house and it took out the houses on each side of it.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
 
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your pipe work is rubbish and nobody cares about it.

Your main trunking pipe work is dodgy as hell and there is extremely limited work ticket standards enforced and there is zero political pressure to generate anything sensible. Your just going to have to accept that these things happen occasionally
 
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Errr some rather sweeping generalisations there Alastair.

Few pints in?

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I think is still not confirmed as a gas explosion, but I certainly bet that it will be. It's got all the earmarks. Nothing left bigger than a matchstick. Just missing a massive fire, so it was accumulated leakage rather than a mains break. The gas distribution system has the oldest pipe in the entire country some dating from 1817. Of course far too expensive for a profit motivated company to properly maintain or replace.

“What I told you was true ... from a certain point of view.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Return of the Jedi"
 
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I think we are at a different level. Here we are still trying to get the lead out of our water piping.

“What I told you was true ... from a certain point of view.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Return of the Jedi"
 
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The last one was. And now gone.

We had huge issues with our gas main in Scotland. Getting the water main upgraded was relatively easy.

They seemed to work with the gas that if it wasn't leaking then don't touch it. There was 2 years of fixing leaks before they replaced the whole thing.

Mine is now all external and doesn't go near any enclosed spaces in the building. It used to route through the foundations.

This issue with old gas pipes isn't country specific and neither is the zero political pressure to get it sorted. They don't seem to know which way they want to go with gas and they don't want to upgrade the current infrastructure which in my area was over 50 years old.

The digging up the street 3 times in the space of 12 months though due to nobody from the utility's talking to each other was particularly annoying.
 
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No information yet if this was a gas leak inside the dwelling, or outside. However a pipeline leak would not surprise me. Particularly troubling is that when oderized natural gas peculates through enough dirt, the odorant can be stripped out, resulting in there being no obvious indication (Mercaptan smell) of a natural gas accumulation.

The US pipeline regulator is strongly encouraging gas distribution utilities to replace cast iron and bare steel distribution pipelines and service taps. Some locations are farther along than others, likely has something to do with the willingness of the local regulators to allow cost recovery for the replacements.

Pipeline Replacement Background (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration)
Scorecard (per above site) MD still has 1,111 miles of cast iron distribution pipe in service.
 
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This is the area... sounds like two dead so far...

Dan - Owner
Footwell%20Animation%20Tiny.gif
 
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Was this some kind of public housing project? Can't imagine anyone but the government building something so unappealing.

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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
 
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What age are those?

It looks like a post 80's if not 90's development. I would have thought they would have newish pipes from the utilities.
 
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According to Redfin, these townhouses were built in 60s. Footage ranges from 1100 to 1300, ASP around $100k, so not public housing, per se. The middle unit last sold in 2007 for $100k.


TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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60 year old pipes then. As FacEngrPE says the soil will take the smell away.

What we were finding was that because the pipes were under tarmac under the road it then came up the outside of the pipe into the foundations. Two leaks were only discovered because the owners were tanker engineers and had gas detectors in the foundations. Came back from a tour on the boat and the wife was complaining she could hear a beeping noise from under the floor. They then went and drilled holes in the road and put a sniffer probe in to try and find them.

When they replaced everything the pipes got rerouted so the meter was outside.
 
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