Many people are going "off the grid" before midnight 01/01/1900 - opps 01/01/2000. Yet I have not seen anyone mention that if natural gas suppliers have problems, your gentle little pilot light could receive enough gas to become a fire danger. I remember reading about gas mains going bezerk and causing major fire problems in this normally benign area. Shouldn't we also be concerned about this??

-- Same as other place (NWphotog@Foxcomm.net), November 01, 1999

Answers

Maybe so; and I plan on doublechecking the location of the shut-off valve of my gas meter this month so as to be able to run outside before the explosions -- growing closer and closer as they move down our street -- actually take out my house. But my sense of things is that being 30-40 miles off the main N/S gaslines, and there being tens or hundreds of thousands of private and commercial gas customers between our place and the main pipelines, and the pipelines themselves being laden with embeddeds, that one way or another the disruptions "upline" will elimnate pressure and flow long before any "surge" or spike" can reach our place. I do not consider this a real concern -- only one of those early hypotheticals: raise and dismiss.

-- Roch Steinbach (rochsteinbach@excite.com), November 01, 1999.

I'm pulling this outta my ass here, but:

NG runs through the mains at High Pressure.

Depending on your situation, you either have a Regulator that is just before the gas meter (big flat pancake shaped thingie), or there is a central regulator for the houses in your immediate area.

This regulator only allows a few lbs of pressure into your house.

A pressure surge of NG should not get through the final pressure regulator.

I'm not sure what set of circumstances can destroy a pressure regulator.

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), November 01, 1999.

I have a valve in the basement that allows me to shut off the flow of NG from the outside line. This is in case of delivery problems, so I can switch to propane, a 500 gallon tank of which sits in my back yard. This will power both the generator outside, and the furnace inside. I already have the propane jets for the furnace. Yes the water heater would fry (or be turned off), but we WILL have heat/power, no matter what.

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), November 01, 1999.

Actually, most NG residential services run at a few inches water column. Your mutual neighborhood or single service pressure regulator should be of a locking design. If the regulator inlet pressure is too high, it will lock off, not allowing any gas through. This would protect the regulator diaphram from blowing out. But still, it's a great idea to know where your shutoff valve is. It's also a good idea to exercise the valve a few times. Better to have it loose and working than corroded tight an unmoveable. Don't hesitate to lable the direction of off on the side of your house, or on a stake driven in near the valve. Under the stress of who knows what, it's good to be able to have directions for anyone to follow.

-- Ninh Hoa (tech@univ.now), November 01, 1999.

In January of 1982, a backhoe operator damaged a pressure regulator on a gas main in Centralia, Missouri. The regulator failed and sent high pressure gas directly into homes. People who were cooking at the time reported flames up to four feet high coming out of their stove burners. Furnaces did the same. The affected houses caught fire and a good-sized part of the town burned. I was going to school in Columbia at the time (about 20 miles away) and I remember standing in front of the student union watching the smoke.

I don't know if a y2k failure would have the same effect as mechanical damage, but it would be a good idea to know how to shut off your gas just the same.

-- Sam Mcgee (weissacre@gwtc.net), November 02, 1999.