Wednesday, May 22, 2013

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.

5 comments:

jon spencer said...

Good thing you did not find it with the lawn mower exhaust.
At least the leak was before the meter.

Aaron said...

Jon:

Yep, that would have been rather more exciting than I'd prefer.

Gas is back on, no further leaks found so I'm happy.

Six said...

Glad they found it. For us it's the water main. They've got the entire street torn up right now and they expect the project will take 30 days. Oh joy. The way I look at it is that any infrastructure upgrade ultimately improves my property values. But it sure is a pain.

Scott said...

Glad this didn't turn out like the leak in Royal Oak earlier this year that killed a homeowner and leveled his house.

Also glad this didn't happen in February! Probably running a fireplace during gas leak repair operations would be ... foolish.

Unknown said...

That was very efficient indeed! It was great of them to do the neighborhood survey and quickly alerted you of the issue before it got out of hand and ended up causing a huge catastrophe. Whether it's the gas lines outside or the pipes in your home, doing a routine inspection and some maintenance could save everyone a lot of trouble. Thanks for sharing, Aaron! -Maisie@JBW Technologies