Last week Angela and I finally went barbeque shopping, and we had a natural gas line installed to our back yard so that we wouldn't have to bother with tedious propane tanks.

The gas line was installed on Tuesday. Two other events happened on Tuesday that are important to this story. First, while we were shopping, we also picked up a breadmaker. Second, I hired some university students to paint all the exterior windows of my house.

The first thing we had to do with the breadmaker was to set it to run for one complete cycle with the lid open. This burns off all of the extra chemicals that may have been present from the manufacturing process. It also causes your house to smell really bad. Also, one thing that happens when your house is painted is that you tend to smell paint wherever you go.

So, later that day when Angela said that she smelled something strange, I dismissed it, figuring it was either the breadmaker or the paint. Later in the week when we still smelled something strange, I thought it must still be from the painters. By the weekend, after the painters were practically done, we started getting more enxious about the persistent smell.

Now, Natural Gas is naturally odourless, so the gas company adds a chemical to it that makes it smell like sulphur or rotting eggs. One other thing to realize about the smell of rotting eggs is that it is quite easy to get used to it. In fact, after just a few minutes inside the house, I could swear that I couldn't smell any foul odours anymore, and so every time I came into the house I dismissed my initial reaction as psychological.

On Sunday, AAron dropped by for a visit, and the first thing he mentioned when he came in was that he smelled gas. That was the final turning point in my head, and after AAron's visit I called the Union Gas emergency line.

Sure enough, a nice guy from Union Gas came around with a gas detecting device and found a rather large (9%) gas leak in our basement. He was also nice enough to write me up for six code violations and shut off the entire gas to the house. Oh well. We quickly got in contact with the guy who installed our gas line and he came out and fixed everything up for us.

During his analysis of the problem he found this cracked flare fitting, which was not one that he installed, but it must have somehow cracked during his installation process. He claimed that in 20 years of business, he has never seen a solid fitting crack like this before. I believe him. It seems incredible that such a severe crack would develop unless there was a preexisting manufacturing defect of some kind.

Well, the positive side of this story is that my house didn't blow up. And I have a new BBQ, and tasty bread, and painted windows! If you think this week has been busy for me, stay tuned... I think next week I'm installing a new furnace...

Technical details: This was taken with my Rebel XT + kit lens at 55mm, ISO 200, f/36 for 13 seconds.

Comments

Crazy!	Hmmm a new furnace huh... if you and Angela know whats good for you,
you may want to consider getting a hotel room for a night or two :)

Ay yi yi!  Thank you, AAron!