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Pikesville MD Explosion 1

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Many houses in that era probably used either cast iron or "black iron" pipes set in the concrete screed or under the floor boards to pipe it internally. Often screwed joints as well.

When our old house got connected to the mains well after the house was built we had a gas leak inside the house where a carpet gripper nail had punctured the pipe laid all of 1" below the top of the concrete screed....

But gas spreading along pipes from a leak in the mains is also pretty common.

Would be interesting to know if there was a void under the houses or not, i.e suspended floor or solid floor.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
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Quote from the links above:

BGE, the nation’s oldest gas utility with origins dating to 1817, likely needs to replace thousands of miles of obsolete pipes.

Chris Burton, BGE’s vice president for gas distribution, testified before the Maryland Public Service Commission in mid-May, providing an update on the company’s aging infrastructure.

About one-third of its gas distribution mains, one-quarter of its gas services and half of its transmission mains are older than 50 years old, he said. Roughly 15% of its massive gas distribution system is made of “outmoded materials.”

Gas leaks are so frequent that nearly two dozen of them are discovered each day, on average, according to data BGE reports to federal authorities. The number of leaks increased by 75% from 2009 to 2016 — amid what officials called a “dramatic” increase in the failure of pipe joints dating from the 1950s and 1960s.

----------------------------------------

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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Parent company, Exelon, generates $33 billion per year, but somehow cannot seem to make a plan to replace old pipe in Baltimore Gas' system in less than 20 years with budget of $1 Billion. Note that is only $50 million/yr, although spending 24 M installing smart meters. Well I guess pretty soon they will know exactly how much they lose to leaks.

“What I told you was true ... from a certain point of view.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Return of the Jedi"
 
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IR, I think you're in the correct spot... I marked the location at the start of the block just a few units away. What prevented the unit to the left from being destroyed was the gap between the multi-units.

For those who are mentioning the soil scrubbing the smell... the article states several people complained about smelling gas.

Dan - Owner
Footwell%20Animation%20Tiny.gif
 
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Yeah, I was having trouble reading the house numbers in the photos initially, but I think everything is tracking; the Redfin data is for the middle of the three that were completely obliterated, i.e., the one that was adjacent to the end unit, next to the gap, in that group.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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Was this some kind of public housing project? Can't imagine anyone but the government building something so unappealing.
Click to expand...

Welcome to Baltimore. If I had to guess, I'd say that well over 90% of the housing stock is rowhouses; their curb appeals cover a rather wide range, with the median being on the lower side. It's a poor city that's long been plagued by a lot of problems. That said, in the little bit of real estate shopping I've done for homes in England, stuff over there strikes me as pretty fugly, too, and much more expensive.

BGE, the nation’s oldest gas utility with origins dating to 1817, likely needs to replace thousands of miles of obsolete pipes.
Click to expand...

They are replacing the lines. I think it was last year that they finished my neighborhood. I don't know what the timeline is for finishing the whole city.

Many houses in that era probably used either cast iron or "black iron" pipes set in the concrete screed or under the floor boards to pipe it internally. Often screwed joints as well.
Click to expand...

Something odd I found once I moved here - in my neighborhood (~5 miles away, houses built in the 1920's), adjacent pairs of rowhouses share a feed from the street, with the split being located in the basement of one of the units, upstream of the individual meters.

Would be interesting to know if there was a void under the houses or not, i.e suspended floor or solid floor.
Click to expand...

They all have full-height basements.

 
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The gas lines in our house, to the dryer (which is capped off), to the furnace and to the fireplaces, are all iron pipe with threaded connections. Our house was built in 1978 and met all relevant building codes, including earthquake codes, for SoCal.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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It probably still does.

“What I told you was true ... from a certain point of view.” - Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Return of the Jedi"
 
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When you get gas work done in the UK in your house, they first test your existing pipework with a manometer - so inches of water column pressure, i.e. bugger all.

You then get acquainted with the concept of an "acceptable" leak / pressure drop over a minute.

To get an old system to seal 100% through all valves / joints etc is next to impossible and likely to disturb the pipework trying to find an impossibly small "fugitive" leak somewhere in pipes which are under floor boards, buried in screeds / concrete etc etc

Does make you think a bit though....

By far the best detection device is mounted on the front of your face.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.
 
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As far as fixing these obsolete gas pipes in the good old USA, there's two issues:
[ol 1]
[li]All gas utilities, to my knowledge, are private entities. It's very hard to pressure them to do any kind of preventative maintenance. If you have a decent lobbyist, you can literally get away with murder. They'll dilute the requirements until they're meaningless. [/li]
[li]It's very hard to capture the costs. You can't really charge more for your product if it's going through better pipes. Until you're losing money due to leaks, it's hard to justify. [/li]
[/ol]
And if the leak is inside a house, it's another set of problems.
 
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There used to be a time when utilities were private, but regulated, so they could be forced to do the right thing; but some people had this silly idea that utilities could be self-regulating, LOL.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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And provide service "more efficiently", read cheaper, in the process. How many times are we going to fall for that line of reasoning? It is a more efficient alchemy process though, changing iron, now plastic, into gold, especially without any maintenance costs. Dont even have to pay your metals broker, or your alchemist any more.

 
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Sort of like the arguments that we've been hearing of late about making the Post Office a for-profit operation, eh?

Note that the Post Office was established by the United State Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 and there is nothing about it making a profit. BTW, clauses 12 and 13 of that SAME Section of the Constitution establishes the Army and Navy, respectively, and there's no mention of they being profit-making organizations either.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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True, but USPS directly charges for services, while the DoD does not.

And provide service "more efficiently", read cheaper, in the process. How many times are we going to fall for that line of reasoning?
Click to expand...

And it is cheaper, since the utilities can still turn profits and can pay off billions of fines and claims; it's just not "better" service, but no one seems to care about that.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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IRstuff said:
True, but USPS directly charges for services, while the DoD does not.
Click to expand...

Haha. You think people have a bad opinion of the, otherwise successful if not for the absurd restrictions/mandates congress imposed and continues to impose, self-funded USPS for running a deficit?

Imagine if people saw the per capita bill for DoD's services.




Can you tell I was raised by a USPS mail carrier? [peace]

Andrew H.
 
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The DOD may not make money directly, but they make everybody else make a lot of money and that's even better. You only lose on the stuff that actually explodes and those are really only short term losses.

 
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This situation with the infrastructure is not unique to USA, its the same in the UK.

Alot of it I suspect is the fact that there are no bonuses involved in upgrading the infrastructure. The only time they will do it is if they are forced to, by something going bang or the leaks quantity starts reducing profits and bonuses. Or the regulator/ H&S force them to.

I very much doud't our street would have had a new mains installed if it wasn't for the two gas tanker marine engineers who had access to all the sniffer gear and me using a mate in the HSE.

It seemed to me that having the gas pipe entering the property in a still air void area in the foundations was asking for problems. Which is why I got mine moved outside. Now I only have 6 meters of gas pipe internally to the central heating burner. All copper from the meter and pressure tested to 5 bar for 48 hours no pressure drop. Which I did myself and the Gas bloke who came to put the burner back online was most impressed with. "we just don't have the time or ability to do a proper pressure test like that, it would mean 2-3 visits per job. "
 
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