Very, very faint smell of gas every now and then

owen_money

stator wrote: »

I know someone who called out a gas engineer and it turned out to be a dead rodent

What the gas engineer was a dead rodent?

BishBashBosh86

Update:


Cadent came round this morning and confirmed a leak. The chap said he could tell there was an issue straight away as the reading on his test went down 1 mbar after 30 seconds or so and then was 2 mbar after about a minute.
I showed him where the smell was and he waved his wand about and it picked up 14% LEL (the numbers varied).
I've taken up that bit of carpet and exactly at the spot where I left a mark on the skirting as to where the smell was I've noticed what I think is the problem. It doesnt look like a pipe necessarily but it isnt concrete or any other type of building material. It looks like a melted piece of something coming up from the ground. I rubbed it and it smelt strongly of gas.


Anyway, so I'm taking a break at the moment from trying to get a gas safe engineer round. Its proving abit of a nightmare!


What would the fix be?



I spoke to one lady at a firm and they said they would "isolate the pipe from the meter" which didnt really make much sense to me. There only appears to be one pipe from the meter which comes into the house which I can see from the utility cupboard on the other side. This pipe goes down into the ground and then round the house. I did say this to her but she seemed quite annoyed that I didn't get it - am I being stupid? The way I understood it from what she was saying was that they would just cut off that pipe so that it was no longer in use which yes make sense but surely that would mean doing it from under the floor?



The only solution I can see is that they'll have to dig a small channel in the living room where the pipe is, cut the pipe and then cap it off properly? It's a concrete floor as well.


Sigh. Oh well. Thanks for all the advice so far!

Alex1983

Your more then likely going to have it repiped a different route. I certainly wouldn't be happy capping it in the concrete and then cementing back over it. If it's leaked at that point it could easy leak else where.

BishBashBosh86

Here are a couple of images of the suspect pipe:

Frank99

Don't take any chances with Gas, get someone out whatever the cost.

stator

So did the engineer confirm that the leaking was occuring after the meter and not before it?

BishBashBosh86

stator wrote: »

So did the engineer confirm that the leaking was occuring after the meter and not before it?

He did yes. A 2 millibar leak which from what I've read isnt actually that big of a leak but I guess it had to be turned off because of the smell.

I've been reading around about my options and I think what Alex said above is probably the better option - have the pipework re-directed. In my case it could go round the external of my house - to the kitchen and then up to the boiler. Maybe that is the better option in the long run and technically do-able (I'm no expert)

Its probably better option than digging up the living room to find the pipe, capping it off and then hoping that the rest of the internal pipework is okay.

Hmmm! What a way to spend my week off work!

naf123

maybe the old leaking capped pipe is just dead leg that they can isolate from outside...

FreeBear

BishBashBosh86 wrote: »

The only solution I can see is that they'll have to dig a small channel in the living room where the pipe is, cut the pipe and then cap it off properly? It's a concrete floor as well.

This is the problem I had with the gas pipe described earlier. Most of it was under concrete. Didn't help that it was antique iron pipe either. Managed to pull a substantial length of it out during the summer (was doing work to the external wall below ground level). Found several spots where it had pretty much rusted right threw. Would not have been safe it it was still connected to the gas main.

Would not recommend capping any pipe under concrete.