Gas leak in street

Steve_xx

There's a gas leak in the street outside our house. It's slight and although I've thought I could smell gas on occasion for a while I only became concerned about it when I had to turn the water off from the stop tap in the street last week to do a repair on the electric shower.

I could smell gas strongly when i lifted the lid on the water stop-tap in the street. So I reported it to National Grid who duly despatched a lady with a detecting device within an hour. She said there was no gas leaking into the house, but that there was detection from the water stop-tap, albeit at a low level. She said they would return within 7 days to sort it out and that they were busy at the minute due to other high priority leaks/repairs. I expected them to be digging within 7 days but nobody showed and so I called them again yesterday and although they had a record of the first call I made to them, they had no detail of the visit from their engineer and no detail of what was going to be done to cure the problem. But they promised to contact the team involved and they would phone me back and let me know what was to happen. Nobody phoned back and so I called them again a couple of hours later. This time they sent a guy around within minutes who had no detail of the visit from the previous lady over a week a ago, and who carried out the same set of tests both in the house and in the street. This guy concluded the same, ie that there was a leak from the water stop-tap in the street and also that there was similar leakage from next doors water-stop tap. He said they would monitor it on a 7 day basis and that at some point they would stop it, depending on their workload. Apparently they've been really busy with leaks during the recent cold snap etc.

I'm surprised that this can go on like this, and I am alarmed at their apparent lack of recording. I thought there was a legal requirement to report a gas leak within hours of smelling it, and that there would probably be some legal requirement to stop it within a given time? I think this leak has been ongoing for some time as on odd occasions I have been in the street and thought I could smell gas and then within seconds couldn't smell it. I thought it might have been car exhaust fumes from passing vehicles.

My main concern of course is that this gas maybe 'pooling' in the earth and maybe has been doing for some time. If this is the case I'm worried that there might be an explosion of the right conditions are present, ie someone drops a match or something?

Raggie

Sorry can't advice on what you have experienced.

But if you think you have problems----

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev-GY_uS2fI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Steve_xx

Raggie wrote: »

Sorry can't advice on what you have experienced.

But if you think you have problems----

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev-GY_uS2fI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Yes I guess the gas has leaked into the water supply somehow on the video you linked to. Or it could be ingress of methane I suppose.

The problem I have here is that the National Grid seem to have poor communication between their contact desk and their people on the ground. I just don't feel confident that they are dealing with this properly.

I thought that gas leaks had to be dealt with within a prescribed period of time and I wondered if anyone here knew what the rules and regulations are? And, who ought I to contact if I feel that they are not dealing properly with it?

Mankysteve

The fire from the tap is surposeable where that new gas extraction technique they where talkign about doing in Blackpool has contaminated water supplies. The gas will quickly be blown away by the wind before reaching dangerous concentration. If you start digging up where the leak is you might have a problem, but yeah phone them again make a nuance of your self till they sort it.

Steve_xx

Mankysteve wrote: »

The fire from the tap is surposeable where that new gas extraction technique they where talkign about doing in Blackpool has contaminated water supplies. The gas will quickly be blown away by the wind before reaching dangerous concentration. If you start digging up where the leak is you might have a problem, but yeah phone them again make a nuance of your self till they sort it.

Yes I'm sure if they dig it up it will increase, once the leaking pipe is exposed. But, I seem to remember reading somewhere a long time ago that natural gas is heavier than air and so it has a tendency to sink into the ground and accumulate in a pool like fashion. Obviously, if this is the case I'm a bit worried in case this leak has gone on for some time and the gas is 'pooling' underground, thus increasing the risk. I could be wrong on this point however.

I think I'll mention it to the neighbours and see if they think it to be serious enough for them to raise a call about it.

aj_the_red

All outside escapes are catergorised by the engineer who calls they can be either immediate or defered(programmed).There is a limit but it depends on how much open ground , distances , readings etc etc.If as i suspect you have a cat c escape then they will revisit it every 1/7/28 days to monitor it depending again on the situation.

There is no rule as such to fix in 7 days unless its a cat a escape which should be sorted in 7 days.The escape will be fixed but higher cat escapes get fixed first , thats the way it is.

Steve_xx

aj_the_red wrote: »

All outside escapes are catergorised by the engineer who calls they can be either immediate or defered(programmed).There is a limit but it depends on how much open ground , distances , readings etc etc.If as i suspect you have a cat c escape then they will revisit it every 1/7/28 days to monitor it depending again on the situation.

There is no rule as such to fix in 7 days unless its a cat a escape which should be sorted in 7 days.The escape will be fixed but higher cat escapes get fixed first , thats the way it is.

Yes, what you say is how they appear to be handling it. They said they will monitor it in 7 days time. The first time they called they told me that someone would come within 7 days to fix it, and they said that they would probably fit a new pipe from the service pipe to our meter. But as I'd not heard from them I decided to phone them again on the eighth day. What worried me was their apparent vagueness, ie they knew I'd phoned a week earlier but they had no detail of what had transpired from their first visit and I got the impression that the call may have been closed at that point. Anyhow, after I called them on Saturday, twice, they sent another engineer within minutes of the second call and he too had no detail of the previous attendance a week earlier, which again is slightly worrying.

I understand your comment regarding the category of escape and realise that it is just a small leak. However, it will not get better of its own accord and there is a danger for sure. I will leave it for a week or two, unless I feel it's gotten worse. But there will come a point when I will be insisting that it's fixed.