Thankfully, No Earth Shattering Kaboom

So this morning I was working from home and I got a knock on the door.

It was Consumers Energy, letting me know that there was a gas leak right in my front yard.

It seems they were driving through the neighborhood doing a survey and it detected gas leaking.

Of course, it had to be on the lawn right where there are a bunch of large rocks decoratively piled and right under a Michigan white pine sapling that Leah brought home from school last year and we had planted in that otherwise bare space.

The gas leak explains why Leah's tree is having some issues with browning leaves and such.

So, they immediately got to work excavating a hole to get to the leak.

It became quite a large hole indeed.

They then found the leak almost immediately in the copper pipe leading to the house, right at the main. It made quite the whooshing noise when they found it. They then capped off the main and then pressure tested the remainder of the copper pipe leading to the house. No further leaks were found but they're going to replace the copper service pipe with a plastic one all thw way to the house soon so more digging will occur in the future. It was also clearly safe once one of the service guys had a smoke break right by the hole.

Here's the site of the leak and the remainder of the copper service pipe being tested.

A welder then arrived and they welded the connection back to the main. They then filled in the hole and finished up. Final leak testing comes later along with turning the gas back on, probably later this evening.

Very efficiently done, and the Consumer's Energy guys were nice people. It was pretty cool watching them skillfully do the excavation and repair work.

They're also going to cover the bare earth back up and move the rocks back into position once the final clean-up crew is available.

An interesting diversion and another reminder that it is always something.