Wont buff out

those guys standing right in front of it may need to get their hearing tested - after they get into some new pants.
 
Hope no one died in that, Natural Gas can be a very dangerous thing. Looked to me like the house was full of gas and something gave it an ignition source, water heater, furnace, light switch, cell phone, home phone, it does not take much at all to ignite when there is that much gas.
 
The news reports that 15 people got hurt, but no deaths so far.

To get an explosion like that the conditions have to be almost perfect. A little too much gas, or not quite enough, and all you get is a fireball which wouldn't have even blown out the windows.
 
Wow , that could have been this old house one time. I came home from a service call and found my house full of natural gas . It was a wonder the dog was not dead . This was in the fall and we did have the heat on . I got the dog out and hooked him away from the house and went back in and opened al the doors and windows . Then i started looking for the leak . When i opened the door to the basement the odor was really strong and i almost made the mistake of turning on the lights , stopped myself with my finger on the light switch . Thinking that would be a huge mistake and used my mini mag lite i carry on me . I can hear gas excaping and found that the furnace valve was open but the pilot lite on the furnace was out and also on the hot water heater . I shut off the gas to both and opened up the two windows that i could open and got the heck out of there . I went outside and called the gas company and that was a huge mistake , i found out that THEY had shut the gas off to make a repair on the main line and they went around and to each house to relite any pilot lites that went out and check for any other leaks IF there was somebody home . well nobody was HOME and yes there was a problem with the gas valve on my furnace that i did not know about . BUT the commotion that came about next was unreal as i
had five fire trucks arriving and four cops and a half dozen gas company employees. here . and the fight was on . They were really upset that I turned off the gas and that I opened up all the windows and doors . What i was SUPPOSE TO DO WAS CLOSE all windows and doors and run around and tell all my neighbors to evacuate and then call them . I had also called the heating contractor to come and replace the gas valve on the furnace and they even gave him a hard time as they had to inspect his work and also inspect all jpoints and fitting before we could relite the two pilot lites . Oh and that was another fiasco as they went to checking all joints valves and fitting there gas sniffers were not working as they tried three and so they went with a PROPANE TORCH .
 
Had a thrift store blow like that 6 miles away in a small town a couple decades ago. Was a warehouse pole barn type of building. Dad and I were in the shed getting the swather ready, the boom was so loud dad went out and looked to see what fell on the shed. A forklift hit a gas line the nite before, when the fella came to open the garage door in the morning he was backing a semi up to the door, used a remote to open the door, and it blew the building to bits, wrecked a cement plant next door, leveled a couple close houses, took several houses off their foundations, cracked walls in about half the houses in the town of 500.

No one died, actually no one was really hurt much including the owner in the semi cab survived, the trailer took the blast.

My sister was renting a house over winter with a bevy of gals when she went to college. That summer following, the house blew, all that was left was a story and a half brick chimney, everything else was in basketball sized bits all over the neighborhood. Just unbelievable.

In the tiny town a mile from me, an elederly couple had their house blow off the foundation, that was a propane leak, destroyed the house but it didnt level it. In the paper interviewing the elderly couple - both were home, both only bruised - the old fella said after he yelled to his wife, who was in the bathroom, "What did you do in there?" Ah, old Germans, some have a sense of humor in the worst of times.

Just the right mix of air and ng, and wow.

Paul
 
If my memory is correct - - - 3 or 4 years ago a guy in the Indianapolis area sabotaged his house and blew it up while he and his family were away. I seem to remember that it destroyed some nearby houses also. The man (and I think his wife) was subsequently arrested and I think that his new home is highly fortified with iron bars.

Tom in TN
 
A few years back I lost a friend to a gas leak. Friends who would visit them would tell him they smelled gas... But whole family were smokers and couldn't smell it. One afternoon he and a son went in the basement and he lit a cigarette. Blast lifted house right off foundation. He died from burns, especially in the lungs. Son was injured.

Now, rest of the story. Gas company traced the leak to the connection at the main at the street. Gas followed the line through the sand right along the line and into the house. Line came in through a hole punched into the concrete block wall. Line was also run under a paved driveway. Gas migrated through the sand clear from the street. Gas lost most of the odor in the sand, thus was not easy to smell, especially by those who had destroyed their smelling by lifetime of smoking. There's several lessons here.
 

"Line came in through a hole punched into the concrete block wall."

Around here, gas lines have to enter the basement above ground.
 
Jerry, I cleaned up a house that that happened to . The Man unhooked a gas line in the house and laid down on the couch to end it all. Before He expired something toughed of the gas and blew the roof off the house without giving him the results he expected.
Ron
 
Looks to me like the gas company would have been at fault because the gas meter and a shutoff should have been installed outside of the house. They then should have shut the gas off and put a lock on the valve so you would have had to call them to get the gas turned back on and light the pilots.
 
The main shut-off and meter are in my basement.
Anytime they have to do any work to the line in from the street they run a new line underground and put the meter outside.
I would guess at least half, maybe 75% of the homes in the older parts of the city here have never been changed and the meters are still in the basement.
 
Oh the main shut off is outside , BUT i have shut offs every where , one on the line going to the furnace , one going to the hot water tank and there are two to the gas stove , one in the basement and one behind the stove up in the kitchen and one more on the main line inside the basement . . Just like the water lines in the house when i redid the plumbing i installed shutoffs all over and all the ones in the basement have a drain valve on them just incase i would have to drain the lines and under the sinks there is a valve for hot and cold . Where as before there was only one shutoff and it was at the meter and you had to turn off the water to the whole house for one small repair Now i can even remove the hot water tank with out any problems as there is and in and out valve . But you are wright the gas company should have turned off the main at the meter and LEFT a NOTE
 
Our neighbors house did this too. Luckily they were on vacation, so no one got hurt. Turns out it was declared arsen by someone who had bad experiences with the owner. It made one heck of a mess. I wasn't home, but saw the glow in the sky as I came home. I was almost certain it was our house, but it wasn't.
 

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