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Houses are blowing up all over North shore Massachusetts.
brandonf
Member Posts: 188
Homeowner, Entrepreneur, Mechanic, Electrician,
"The toes you step on today are connected to the butt you'll have to kiss tomorrow". ---Vincent "Buddy" Cianci
"The toes you step on today are connected to the butt you'll have to kiss tomorrow". ---Vincent "Buddy" Cianci
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Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
"Reducing our country's energy consumption, one system at a time"
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Baltimore, MD (USA) and consulting anywhere.
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/all-steamed-up-inc
Sounds like a high pressure regulator failed. Certainly should have downstream pressure reliefs on that stuff.
Although utilities are not covered by the state plumbing code my guess is that PRVs will be required on hp gas before the meters ......starting tomorrow. Probably want the prv discharge piped above the highest point of the roof LOL
You can choose to do what you want, but you cannot choose the consequences.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-01-19-9201060148-story.html
"Reducing our country's energy consumption, one system at a time"
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Baltimore, MD (USA) and consulting anywhere.
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/all-steamed-up-inc
I am on Columbia gas myself but at the other end of the state.
Gee, I don't suppose there will be any gas rate increase in the future, will there?????
Now to add to the boondoggle the FEDS are investigating
I assume the regulator at the meter would prevent a main overpressure from getting to the building, just how much overpressure can the regulator take.
I used to install emergency generators, some required 2psi at the inlet, we always had a fight with the utility to provide a meter regulator at "that high a pressure"
Whats everyone's thoughts and ideas on how to prevent this from ever happening again
Not sure about the area I am at the other end of the state but Lowell, MA is a very old area. I have done a lot of commercial burners. They usually make us use a "lock up" regulator which will shut and not feed gas if the inlet is subjected to high pressure. The regulator bodies are usually rated 125 psi. Don't know about the residential regulators
yeah, I can see them requiring pressure relief valves ahead of the residential gas meters. Anything mechanical can fail but somehow with such a widespread problem I am thinking human error.
I would be interested in what @Tim McElwain could add to this. I would bet he has a lot of knowledge of the utilities distribution system
Scary stuff! It seems low pressure distribution is actually the least safe as there is no protection at each service to prevent something like this.
Serving Cleveland's eastern suburbs from Cleveland Heights down to Cuyahoga Falls.
Our area has relatively "new" NG systems installed in the mid 60's. The rule then was to always break ground outside and enter the building above grade. The reg/meter is in the alley or just outside the building. Usually only 7" into the building, they have just started allowing 2 PSI for heavy users.
I recall reading stories from the cities with old systems, of a backhoe in the neighbors yard hooking a ladies gas pipe and breaking it off inside the basement ..…..she was lucky as she was standing at the back door watching the work being done.....she was blown to safety into the yard.
Another case was horizontal boring company pierced a gas line going into a restaurant, I assume gas flowed thru the loose pack of the old trench and came into the basement, took a long time to find a main shutoff. Alley was probably concreted over & frozen and the gas took the easiest route into the basement.
Scary yet was finding some 50+ year old soft copper coming in under the shallow footings of a couple of old farm houses.
This was propane which would certainly have followed the trench into the crawlspace. Only one single stage reg at the tank, also the same age as the copper.
Albert Einstein
im still struck by so many comments that the homeowners boilers were on fire. this leads me to believe they were not on a 3 psi system but a 7" system no regs on 7" gas so the burners go to blow torch. a 3 psi system the regs would vent (hopefully to the outside)
if there were no vent pipe to the outside and thats were the excess gas was blowing, why did the gas appliances burn?
my guess and its just a guess, is they were doing a pressure upgrade some where on the system but failed to identify a pathway to these other communities where there 7" system has not yet been prepped for the upgrade
remember in California a large transmission line blew up an entire neighborhood. that gas company had no record of that line on their system, the didnt even know it was there
as of today all are allowed back into their homes and electric power can be restored. the gas it will probably be a month before that's on
It is never a case of beware of Horizontal Directional Drilling and its use.
It is effectively and safely used in many areas for many types of utilities as well and Combined Sanitary and storm water overflow collection pipelines fed from underground catch basins that pump the overflow CSS waste water to the sewage treatment plants for sewage treatment and later discharge
The use of ground penetrating radar and the most up to date maps for all utilities in the area that the work is being done is what saves everyone's bacon.
Anyone that does not use ground handheld penetrating radar or contracts for this service and robotic sewer camera inspection systems to find illegal storm and sanitary sewer connections along the route should be using them.
It is always a case of using the newest and (properly drawn map legends) for existing municipal sanitary sewer interceptor force mains, gravity fed trunk sewer lines and for locating the gravity fed and force main interceptor storm sewer lines, potable water distribution lines, potable water main gate valves, buried curb boxes and the block by block maps for water connections and residential and commercial underground phone and electrical power lines and the transformer and switch gear vaults as well as the location of the feeder cables to the residences and businesses.
About the unknown gas pipeline in California; The first home in the neighborhood that was destroyed was owned by a Negro gentleman. He was the only one home at the time when the pipeline blew up.
From what I remember of it:
The home the gentleman purchased on the site was built directly over the pipeline that was buried there many years ago.
The building contractor and or excavator contractor built the home as a slab on grade construction method with a shallow foundation wall and footer and THE ENCLOSED GARAGE WAS DIRECTLY OVER THE BURIED PIPELINE from what I remember of the national news show interview with the gentleman at the time.
(The pipeline and trenchless installation companies did not use coated piping until maybe 20 years ago to reduce/prevent galvanic corrosion from damaging the pipelines after the pipeline joints are welded they coat the joints with a roller using the same epoxy paint material used to coat the pipe after it is manufactured at the foundry)
The pipeline had cracked and the gas of course went upward and entered through the full concrete slabs cracks and if I remember this correctly the gas fed hot water heater was in the garage.
And you guessed it, of course the worst happened. I do not know if the water heater had a standing pilot or was controlled by a Piezo Electric Igniter or not but if the gas accumulated in the garage that was closed and then was ignited it must have been a Piezo Electric demand type ignition system
Just for everyone's information you should invest in "Trenchless technology Magazine" to learn more about Horizontal Directional Drilling and micro tunneling for utilities. The magazine is worth every penny and in many cases free to contractors that do the type of work discussed in the magazine every month.
Many gas utilities are now using the yellow plastic gas pipe in a unique way where if possible they are pushing the new plastic gas pipe through the old steel gas pipe and then cutting out the steel connecting elbows in shallow pits wherein the electroweld new elbows using using Greenlee pipe fusing machines and then pushing the pipe through to the meter connections to save them time and money.
A lot of plumbers are installing new municipal fed potablewater line connections to home and businesses the same way.
Sewer line rehabilitation using steam cured woven felt fabric under pressure has come of age and used in many areas now for sanitary and storm sewer pipe rehabilitation work as well as lateral connections for sanitary and storm sewers fed by roof top drainage systems that have to be piped through to sub basements and basements.
This is most adventageous where small and large pipe bursting using directional drilling and hydraulic powered bursting heads that are used to push through the old pipe expand and break the old pipe pull the new pipe into place using bentonite clay and water with other lubricants to slip the new pipe in to place is not possible due to the business operations or too costly to employ per foot of work in both shallow and deep trenches where the existing lines are located when pipe pulling is not possible or practical.
www.trenchlesstechnology.com/subscribe/
My thoughts on a hot day where its too hot to work outside.
Serving Cleveland's eastern suburbs from Cleveland Heights down to Cuyahoga Falls.
The electrical grid is terrible, the roads are terrible, the bridges are crumbling, the schools that were built in the 50's and 60's are falling apart, the gas distribution system is ancient, the railway system is literally falling apart from use, etc.... "Aging Infrastructure" is not fake news!
And, as mentioned earlier "let's not hire trained people, they cost too much money".
Albert Einstein
Don't believe me? Read this...
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/pipeline/2017/p17h0011/p17h0011.asp
I believe that the California incident which was mentioned was the PG&E rupture and fire in San Bruno. The executive summary is here: https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/PAR1101.aspx
and that page contains a link to the full report, which is interesting if slightly dismaying reading.
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
I once saw an extremely large regulator. The diaphragm assembly must have been 30 or 36 inches in diameter. I do not know what the pressure was on either the supply or delivery side of that regulator, but it must have been a lot. The thing was screaming, and as far as I can tell, that was just how it normally sounded. The pipes going in and out were very large diameter, but I do not remember what they were. Could it have been thousands of psi?
Are you going to take that chance
Not disagreeing with you at all Mr. Hall, anything can go wrong as my uncle found out when he ended up killing my closest friend and a coworker at the mine where I used to work in 1982.
Rick was divorced with parents and a brother that he left behind and Barry left a wife and 2 young girls behind that night.
The NTSB chief investigator on site said that it has been confirmed that this incident was caused by high pressure gas resulting in the explosions and fires that occurred.
Not surprised. But now the question is going to be... what happened? Over the years I've found that NTSB is pretty good at figuring that out -- but it's going to take time.
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
why? no one here knows. its all speculation at this point.
NTSB takes years to confirm anything regarding root cause.
we wont know for years
Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England.
Hoffman Equipped System (all original except boiler), Weil-Mclain 580, 2.75 gph Carlin, Vapourstat 0.5 -- 6.0 ounces per square inch
I believe it was John Mills who said the two greatest evils in the world at that time were intemperance and boiler explosions, and the latter was often caused by the former. We may see some of the same thing in this case.
"Reducing our country's energy consumption, one system at a time"
Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
Oil & Gas Burner Service
Baltimore, MD (USA) and consulting anywhere.
https://heatinghelp.com/find-a-contractor/detail/all-steamed-up-inc
Government records reveal at least three other serious explosions in Massachusetts, West Virginia and Ohio have been linked to Columbia Gas. The company a subsidiary of NiSource, a utility company that serves more than three million customers in seven states.
There's a pattern of mismanagement here, could be something as simple as the typical American corporate system where brown nosers that know nothing get promoted to management and the people that actually know what they are doing don't or get laid off and replaced with cheaper younger people who also know nothing.
Either way I have a hard time believing 6PSIG did that much damage but I guess it's possible.