Gas explosions - How To Blow Up Your House

Gas explosions always make the news. They are a hidden danger that most of us live with daily. They can have a devastating effect on the most comfortable of suburban lives. It is sobering to read how close we are at times to blowing up ourselves, our neighbourhoods and each other by simply forgetting to switch off an appliance.

It's simple, really. Natural gas is highly combustible. That's how we can use it to cook our food and heat our homes. This combustibility also makes it dangerous. A build up of gas in a house can be ignited by a light switch, which generates a small spark. Or by ringing the doorbell. Or by metal studs on a workman's boot scraping across a stone floor. Or by lighting up a cigarette!

During my research into relatively recent domestic gas explosions I came across one of the most interesting and not very likely causes of a gas explosion. It appears that the house in question had been burgled and the intruders had run off with the oven! Not only did they have the cheek to steal the oven they didn’t bother to hang around long enough to close off the gas, thereby blowing the place to pieces.

I found quite a lot of references to domestic gas explosions in Russia where it appears that these incidences happen relatively often. I was alerted to this when I found a page entitled, ‘What to do during a fire or explosion emergency situation when in Russia’. I thought the instructions could probably apply to any other country with the exception of the sounding of an intermittent horn or siren…best to be prepared I guess. Apparently though, the gas explosions in Russia and some of the surrounding Baltic States occur due to lack of maintenance on the valves and other important pipe fittings. In some cases the valves had completely worn out. Rather than civil proceedings being taken against the company the actual engineers were detained by the authorities on negligence charges with the parent company protesting their innocence. This disaster where 23 people were killed, 7 of whom were children, happened in the Ukraine where correspondents say ‘gas explosions occur regularly’.

So we can be glad that here in the UK we have checks and rules that prevent anything like this from happening too often. Clearly regular maintenance is vitally important.
However explosions do still sometimes occur. Take, for instance, the 60 year old pensioner from Wales who was running her gas through a makeshift meter at her home in South Wales. Her scam was discovered when her neighbour reported a gas leak and at that time Mrs. Williams had been away on holiday in South Africa for 19 days. We can only presume that Mrs Williams had saved so much money on her gas bill that she was able to afford her luxury extended holiday. In the meantime her sprawling three story terraced house could have exploded, taking with it all of the neighbours properties and the local school, simply by someone ringing the doorbell.
One would have thought that whilst away for such an extended period Mrs Williams may have turned off her gas at the source, however since she wasn’t paying for it, why would she bother. A clear case of greed and negligence, in my opinion Mrs Williams deserves more than a £1,293 pound fine. It’s sickening to know that domestic and commercial gas fraud in the UK costs the industry over £300 million a year and endangers many lives in the process.

On the other hand, spare a thought for innocent people such as Mr John Allen who was innocently sitting on a sofa in his living room when a gas cylinder exploded and he was blown through the window by the blast. Although his condition was not life threatening he was still seriously burned over his chest, back and arms. He was rescued by two people, one of whom described the experience as horrific, ‘he had terrible burns. His jacket was burned to his back. I was walking to my front door and just heard a massive explosion. It totally shook the whole house and I was knocked off my feet. The house looked like a dolls house. There were no walls and you could see belongings inside as the front had been blown off’.

This clearly describes how devastating a domestic gas explosion can be. I think it was a small miracle that Mr Allen wasn’t killed. In Scotland alone there were 10 fatalities between 1977 and 1985 and one hopes that since the tighter registration of gas fitters in the UK that this number has decreased. Strangely I have been unable to find figures showing gas related fatalities in the UK. Regulation must be working then!