Last night I was heading to my city council meeting for December when K came out the back door as I was starting to leave. She motioned for me to come back into the house, which I did. When I got inside she asked me if I thought it smelled like rotten eggs. I said it definitely smelled bad but I didn't know if it smelled like rotten eggs. Well she then says "doesn't natural gas have the rotten egg smell added to it so you know if you have a leak?" I said yes, but we don't have natural gas, we have propane, which was not the smell that was in the house. Well she did not believe this and was worried, and that was ok.
While I stood outside and called 911 where my SIL works, K went next door to the neighbor's house. My SIL gave me the number to the fire chief and I called him to see what he had to say. I was told that it probably was sewer gas and that if the smell was that bad, it would not be propane filling the house. You see, the basement smelled the worst, so bad that it was almost overwhelming. Funny thing was the pilot light on the water heater was still going and the furnace pilot was also still on. So I also thought that if it was in fact propane that was filling the house we probably would have blown up by this point. I decided to go to city council and told K that it was ok to come back home. This did not make her happy though.
Long story short she called our furnace guy to come over and check things out. By the time he left we determined that there was no gas leak and that the smell was in fact sewer gas. I thought that this was the case the whole time, but if K has the piece of mind that she needed by calling the furnace guy, then the $40 was well worth it!
So when we went to bed last night most of the egg smell was gone and by this AM you could not smell it at all.
Thank god our house did not blow up!
Greg
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Rotten Eggs and Propane
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5 comments:
WE have propane too and out outside tank LEAKED when they filled it last....my poor dog was right outside the tank...my husband called the gas compnay and LEFT! I was so worried that if I flicked on a swtich or opened the garage door I would die.
Men worry less... I guess that equals us women out, but sometimes it is disaster!
Gas explosion would suck. Sewer gas stinks, but it could explode as well. It's mainly methane. I wouldn't tell K that. But it takes A LOT of sewer gas to blow up your house.
To avoid sewer gas smells, learn about how the P trap works in your plumbing. Basically, a P trap is a bend in the pipe where water collects. When things drain, it just pushes the water past this bend and out the other side. The water that remains the trap is used to prevent the sewer gas from coming back into your house. If the drain is rarely used, however, this water will evaporate and allow the gas to come into your house.
To prevent sewer gas, pour water down your drains once and a while to make sure you have water in your P trap. We have to do that in our basement shower drain. It only gets used every few months. When we remember, we just walk by and turn on the shower for a minute and then turn it off. Fresh water in the P trap! (I love saying P trap, hehehe)
Of course K is going to be the worry ward, that's what our wives do the best. Thank god they have us men to take care of things. Not to say that we are always right. Hopefully the P trap comment will help you in your next stinky adventure. You know it could be the Hot dog in the tub. HahHahHahHah!!!!
Better to be safe then sorry. Definitely worth the $40.
No Exaggeration.
I took a 911 call yesterday from someone with a similar problem.
This caller had poured bleach down her drain, and caused some sort of reaction with the funky water/bacteria that was in the drain with sewer gasses and the bleach. Caller said they thought they broke a gas line because it got so bad so fast. She grabbed her kid and ran out of the house.
Based on the bleach, I send PD (and not FD) to help make a determination, and was glad to hear that a five gallon pail of water down the floor drain and some fresh air took care of it!!
How ironic!
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