Friday, February 22, 2013

Smell That, Part 2. A Cautionary Scent

There was a bad smell in my basement





The good news is it doesn't smell anymore.








The scary news is what caused the smell.  It's something for which we are supposed to be on alert.  There's even a nasty scent added to it to warn us of its presence.  Yep.  You guessed it.  Gas.

There was a gas leak in the basement!  It had been leaking for a while.  Indeed, according to the gas bill that came later, it had been leaking for weeks.  Somehow members of my household were spared.  None of  us passed out.  None of the resident birds went the way of the canary in the mine shaft. 

A meter reader doing his rounds heard a hisssss.  Next thing you know a technician is replacing the flexible leaky pipe with a rigid non leaky pipe. 

The technician assured me that the soundness of that pipe will outlive us all. 







It turns out that gas doesn't always smell the way you think it does and flex pipes may be flexible but they are not as strong, not as reliable as rigid solid pipe. 


Sometimes the wisest approach is rigid.


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