PSA-cap the gas valve

[bluedog225]

Not enough to turn off the valve. Gotta cap it.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/us/ev...tal/index.html

[Garret]

I gas line with an open end? What kind of idjut would do that? Sheesh.

[hawkeye54]

There 'are' people who cannot smell the odorant added to natural gas - my wife and 2 of my neighbors among them - some years back, after a hail storm, our houses were being reroofed - the roofer who redid the neighbor's roof used a nailer with 2" nails ( 4 of which went thru the gas line which crossed under the roof ) I was walking the dogs, and smelled the gas from the sidewalk by the parkway. The neighbors did not notice anything amiss, before we got them out of the house and into fresh air.


Rick

[bluedog225]

I can see a lot of folks moving the gas dryer out. Installing the new electric. Just turning the valve off and done. Later it gets bumped.

I recall high school. A room full of gas jets for chemistry. None capped.

[Jim Mahan]

IIRC, the event that precipitated the legislation requiring the addition of the noxious smell to NG was the New London school explosion, in nineteen-thirty-seven. Killed over three hundred students and teachers. Fascinating story.

http://wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion

[willmarsh3]

There 'are' people who cannot smell the odorant added to natural gas - my wife and 2 of my neighbors among them - some years back, after a hail storm, our houses were being reroofed - the roofer who redid the neighbor's roof used a nailer with 2" nails ( 4 of which went thru the gas line which crossed under the roof ) I was walking the dogs, and smelled the gas from the sidewalk by the parkway. The neighbors did not notice anything amiss, before we got them out of the house and into fresh air.


Rick

That would be a serious code violation, you'd think!!!???

Maybe a DIY gas installation.

[Jim Bow]

A few years ago there was a major explosion in Seattle’s Greenwood district. Not only was an abandoned gas line not capped, but the gas company did not know the line existed.

[Nicholas Carey]

There 'are' people who cannot smell the odorant added to natural gas...

I find that difficult to believe, unless they've got about zero sense of smell.

Ethyl mercaptan (the stuff added to natural gas to make it odiferous has an odor threshold of roughly 0.001 parts/million (1 part per billion). That's the threshold at which you can identify it.

It detection threshold, though, the point at which you're aware that there's something in the air is an order of magnitude lower, more like 1 part in 50 billion.

But like other smells, continued exposure to a smell leads to olfactory fatigue.

[Canoeyawl]

Yes, I have the habit of capping unused fuel lines.
*Another thing to note if you are diy gas plumbing is that "unions" are frowned upon and in some codes prohibited.
Left hand threaded nipples and couplings are the "proper" way to make an in-line join for gas pipe.

[David W Pratt]

Post COVID, don't a lot of people become anosmic?