Les Jones: My Ross Geller Natural Gas Story

January 17, 2007

Home Life > My Ross Geller Natural Gas Story

There's an episode of "Friends" where Ross Geller (David Schwimmer) is talking to a pretty girl, gets nervous, and has to think of something to say. What comes out of his mouth is something to the effect of "So ... you know that natural gas smell? That's not really the gas. Natural gas is odorless. The gas company puts that smell in the gas so you can smell it if it leaks."

This story will probably be about as exciting as that.

Tonight I was outside playing with Katie. Melissa comes out and we talk a little, and after a few minutes we both notice a funny smell. Like rotten eggs. We decide we should call the gas company, just in case there's a gas leak in the neighborhood.

The Blount County Fire Department comes out shortly. I show them where the gas meter is and they check it with an electronic sniffer. They check the furnace and water heater. They check the LP gas BBQ grill. They check the spot where Melissa and I were standing when we noticed the funny odor. Nothing.

Remember the important lesson Ross taught us all about natural gas? It's odorless. The gas company adds that smell. But when do they add it?

The fireman told me something interesting, and the Atmos Energy person who came out later confirmed it. There's an 18 inch Duke Energy gas main going through Blount County. The gas in the main line is odorless. The odor is added at local Atmos natural gas pumping stations, and there's a pumping station at the far end of the next street. Sometimes the odor that's injected into the gas escapes. A few weeks ago four houses on that street reported natural gas odor. That's what we smelled earlier, and as the wind shifted we couldn't smell it anymore.

Fascinating, huh? But an interesting question is what would happen if there was a leak in the main line.

The fireman confirmed something else I had heard. If you cut a gas line (with a backhoe, for instance), you'll know it from the sound as much as the smell. Gas lines have enough pressure that they make a fair amount of noise when cut.

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Comments

Makes you wonder how much odorless gas you aren't smelling.

Posted by: persimmon at January 18, 2007

I have a similair story. I was home alone late one evening and I smelled what I thought to be natural gas. Worried I would be asphyxiated so I opened all the windows and doors on a 90 degree night. Each room I entered I could smell the odor, although faint. The next morning I left the windows open after a sweaty too hot to handle night, and went to work. On the way to work in my car I noticed the same natural gas smell. I thought perhaps the odors seeped onto my hair or skin, I sniffed my arms, hair, and then took out my brand new leather head band, here it was that. I went home later that day and turned my air on, closed the doors and windows and hid my new leather band and the smell, of course, was gone. Talk about a miserable night for nothing!

Posted by: Jessica at July 24, 2008