Was the balloon inflated at all? The gas pressure inside your house is only ounces... maybe 3 to 4 ounces. This isn't enough pressure to inflate a balloon. In my not so humble opinion, this is a piss poor way to test for a gas leak!
----- Original Message ----- From: Shane Hecker To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 23:42 Subject: [BlindHandyMan] gas? hell yes I got gas (conplete) First, let me thank those of you who provided feedback. It was appreciated. Now to the fun part. This afternoon, I decided to implement the suggestion of using a baloon to check for a gas leak at the point where a gas line was capped off. So I go over to the house and think this should be easy, I can reach the cap from the blower closet. That would be where the furnace/ac blower and evaporator coil are. I get in the closet and sure shootin I can't reach the cap. It's just barely out of my reach, about 2 inches back from a 90 degree turn in the pipe. I really wanted to get this done, so time for a little exploration. The attic door is in the garage. A buddy of mine was with me, so after moving a couple things out of the way, I get the door and stairs down. I go into the attic and at first it looks easy. There's some plywood decking, so I figure this should be straight forward. Decking runs out where the garage ends and the house begins, so it's now time to balance on the beams. It took me a while but with the assistance of my buddy talking to me in the closet, I get there and put the baloon over the cap. He's got the duck (or is it duct) tape so he secures the baloon after I get it completely over the cap. He then goes back to the garage and talks to me so I can get back to the opening. I tell you, I didn't realize how quickly you can get hot. It's 75 degrees outside and I still sweat like a pig up there. Hey, no need for exercise, just crawl around in the attic for a while and you'll loose some weight. Anyway, got back down and went outside to turn on the gas. Easy enough. Went back in and checked the baloon. It didn't inflate as far as we could see. Time for the next item, light the water heater. I bought me one of those Bick lighters, the one where you hold down the button and pull a trigger. Kinda looks like a little gun. The first few times I tried lighting the pilot on the water heater, it didn't light. Don't know how much time went by, but I finally got the thing to light. I found out because I got a little too close to the poker and it was hot. Yeah, I think it's lit now. Turn the heater to on and the burner fires up. Now, it gets interesting. For a while there, the flame was jumping out about 6 inches outside the heater. It would jump out, then go back in, jump out, go back in. Every time it jumped out, you could hear a change in the sound. Come to find out that air in the gas line was causing it to do this. After a bit, it became stable. Since I'm not yet in the house, I put the heater on pilot so as not to waste gas. Went back in for another check of the baloon, still no change. Go to church and come back an hour or so later for another check. Still no change. I'm guessing there's no gas leak. The baloon is still up there. I'll probably take it down later. I'm not sure what's going to be more fun, me telling my family what I did or letting them find the baloon up there and the water heater lit and wondering how it came to pass. My mother and her husband probably won't care, but if her husband's dad found out, he'd probably give me an hour lecture on why I shouldn't have done it. If they ask me, I thought about pulling a Bill Engvall here's your sign on them, but might rethink that. What would you do? Thought you would like to know how this came out. I know the message is long, but had to post this. Hopefully someone else will get some benefit from this. Let me know what you think. Later. Shane [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] To listen to the show archives go to link http://acbradio.org/handyman.html or ftp://ftp.acbradio.org/acbradio-archives/handyman/ The Pod Cast address for the Blind Handy Man Show is. http://www.acbradio.org/news/xml/podcast.php?pgm=saturday The Pod Cast address for the Cooking In The Dark Show is. http://www.gcast.com/u/cookingindark/main.xml Visit The Blind Handy Man Files Page To Review Contributions From Various List Members At The Following address: http://www.jaws-users.com/handyman/ Visit the archives page at the following address http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ For a complete list of email commands pertaining to the Blind Handy Man list just send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/blindhandyman/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
