Edited discussion title: suspected LPG gas leak - help

owly11

I posted this message in another forum so apologies for duplicate posting.  We switched off the LPG supply at the tank yesterday (suspected leak) and today we turned it on again but this has not restored the supply.  We have tried resetting the regulator but this has not worked.  Does anyone have any ideas before we call out the engineer?

owly11

Update:  we have managed to get the gas going again - we had been resetting the wrong regulator, even though we had sent pictures to the supplier so they could tell us how to do it. 

However, when we turned the gas on again, I wasn't sure if the smell got stronger again so we have turned it off again to be safe

We have an engineer coming on Thursday - presumably so long as the gas is switched off we will be safe until then?  Is it very difficult to find the source of a leak?  I am worried that it will involve opening up walls etc.

QrizB

owly11 said:

We have an engineer coming on Thursday - presumably so long as the gas is switched off we will be safe until then?  Is it very difficult to find the source of a leak?  I am worried that it will involve opening up walls etc.

It's really easy to find a leak on an exposed pipe. If the pipe is buried in the wall, however, it's not so easy.

Do you know where your pipe runs? Can you access essentially all of it?

owly11

@QrizB it's really difficult to see exactly where it runs so I am pretty sure that we don't have access to all of it.  I have seen about doing the bubble test with soap and water, but the smell doesn't seem to be near any exposed pipework so not sure how we can find it.

ariarnia

poking through our plumbers kit bag when he was here doing a boiler check one time he had a little hand held sniffer thing that could be used to find leaks. apparently it's really sensitive so he would turn off the gas and air out the place then turn it back on and use the sniffer to track it down to a general section of pipe. then check more closely for leaks or bad seals. i would guess anyone thats coming out to look for the leak will have something similar. 

QrizB

Your engineer should be quite skilled at finding leaks. Can you cope without gas until Thursday?

owly11

QrizB said:

Your engineer should be quite skilled at finding leaks. Can you cope without gas until Thursday?

yes we will survive.  I am mainly surprised at how difficult it has been to find anyone to come out.  I am used to being on mains gas, where if you have a gas leak someone comes immediately.  I wasn't expecting the supplier to just say it's our problem.  Hopefully the engineer will find it - fingers crossed it's under a floorboard and not behind a wall.

owly11

@ariarnia i was wondering about that.  The engineer said he could come out and do a pressure check on the system to see if there's a leak, and if there is he would have to cap off the supply and discuss next steps.  That concerned me a bit because I thought how will he find the leak if the supply is off.  I hope he doesn't just cap it off and leave us with the problem.  I wonder if I should try to find someone who's willing to actually search for it up front.