----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph B. Reid" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: February 8, 2002 15:00 Subject: [USMA:18059] Re: metric for IP products
> Robert Bushnell wrote in USMA18015 > > > 2002 February 7 > >I just received this note from R. Schulte, President of ASTM. > >At one time I was employed in the gas utility industry. I related to you the > >difficulties that this one business sector, the natural gas and propane > >distribution industry, faces in moving to the use of SI units. Gas utilities > >in the U.S. are delivering fuel to an estimated 200 million gas-fired > >appliances installed in residences and commercial buildings. The industry > >has not been able to figure out how it could switch pipe and thread sizes to > >metric units without introducing large gas leak (safety) problems into the > >gas distribution networks where service and installation technicians would be > >dealing with a mix of metric and IP threads. This one, narrow example has > >led me to understand why the adoption of metric units in ASTM standards > >remains a committee-by-commitee and sector-by-sector issue. They're confusing the idea of using gas meters that display the amount of gas delivered in cubic metres, with that of using gas meters that connect to pipes with metric sized threads. The man who wrote the letter is either totally confused, or he's trying to confuse other people by two totally separate issues. Obviously, nobody is expecting the US gas industry to go out and change every gas meter in US. But the industry there could start to bill using cubic metres, and could start to install metric gas meters in all new construction. Stephen Gallagher PS My home (Ottawa, ON) was built in 1998, and it has a gas meter (and a water meter) which display usage in cubic metres.
