theplumbersbride

I hope you all had a wonderful and restful Christmas and New Year’s. I would like to take you back to the post Spring Area Natural Gas Issue that I posted on 10/17/2012.  Remember I kept telling Bear that I smelled gas in our bedroom.  The solution at that time was the gas company had increased the odor that day.  The gas company came out and “fixed the problem”.

 Well I started to smell gas in the same area of the house.  Again, Bear kept saying he didn’t smell anything.  Seriously!!! Each day the smell seemed to get stronger.   I started closing the door to our bedroom so when we would walk in you could get a good whiff.  Then finally Bear smelt it too.  He went inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs, and in the attic.  However the detector did not get a strong signal of the gas, until he went in the attic and put the detector in the cavity of the wall and at the meter going into the brick of the house.  He had to take the meter apart and then what he found was not good.  Jake and I had to go in the attic while Bear moved the pipe in the wall from outside of the house.  There was no movement.  This was not good because that meant the problem was lower in the wall.  Bear came inside and said he has to cut the wall.  I was ok with that, however, did I tell you that I have no concept for location when in comes to where pipes are actually located in the wall.  Kind of like some people have no concept of time.  I literally yelled at Bear when I walked back in the bedroom and he was cutting the sheet-rock on my side of the bed.  I am sure you can figure out why I was so upset.  You see we all know that this time next year I will still have the cut sheet-rock….I married a plumber not a drywall man. : )

The wall comes off and he moved the pipe with his hand it was soooo loose.  He said it was obviously only hand tightened during the new construction process.  The scary thing to me is how often does that actually happen?  Well I can tell you now that it has officially happened twice in our home.  When the house was being constructed Bear would go by after work to check on things.  They were getting ready to close up a wall in the kitchen and since all of the plumbing was completed.  However a water pipe was just placed together not glued or anything.  Bear repaired it that afternoon.  Back to the gas leak…..He figured out with the new meter installed by the gas company in September that the pipe loosened in the wall because it was improperly installed.

Ladies trust your noses, if you smell gas call a plumber if the plumber can’t get there right away call the gas company.  The gas company will pull your meter, turn off your gas and have you call a plumber to find and repair the leak.

If you live in the Spring area please be advised the gas company over odorized the natural gas in our area last night.  Center Point Energy had over 700 calls in the area for potential gas leaks today.  Plumbing companies phone lines are being flooded with calls for gas leaks.  This is very scary to me, because we too have had the smell of gas in our home today.  It took Center point over 6 hours to get here today.  Some leaks can be repaired by plumbing companies but some at the meters should be repaired by the gas company.  Natural gas by nature has no odor.  What you smell has been added by man so that we can be alarmed by smell and take immediate action.  Nausea and headaches can be caused by breathing natural gas.

If you smell gas it is very important to call either the gas company at 713-659-2111 or 888-876-5786 or your local plumber.  You can even give Bear a call at 832-287-5180.

I know I am not the only one out there scared of my house blowing up because of a gas leak.  We had our gas meter upgraded on Monday.  So, when I came home from Bible study on Monday night I walked in my bedroom and said “Do ya’ll smell gas” everyone said no.  So the next morning I woke up and I still smelled gas, again no one in the house smelled it but me.  Then today, I wake up walk out of my bedroom to get coffee come back into the bedroom and man I still smelt it but it was stronger today ….Bear do you smell gas.  NO!!!!  I leave to take the kids to school walk back in the house ….Oh my word do you not smell gas…..NO!!!!  He said.  So I continued to work at my desk.  Bear goes outside to get ready to head out for the day, walks back in the house and guess what……Honey do you smell gas……AAgggrrrr YES!!! So he walks around the house with his gas detector….nothing…..then he walks outside to check at the meter…..WOW he said the leak was so bad his detector went crazy so he had to turn the gas off to the house.  So ladies trust your noses and call us if you suspect a leak.

So my big concern today is what IF the gas company had not over odorized?  Would the gas leak from my meter have been detected?  I smelt it in my house because of the bathroom exhaust vent which was direclty above the gas meter.  Very scary!!!