jsalemi

So we're sitting in the family room on the lower level watching TV last night, and we hear our combo gas/CO2 alarm going of. It's on the main level by the fireplace -- we bought it back in early 2004 when we converted our fireplace to gas. I go up to check it, and it's saying that it detects a gas leak. I check around the fireplace, and can't smell anything, but I turn off the gas to it anyway just to be safe. Reset the alarm, and it goes off again.

So my wife and I check around the rest of the house, and can't smell gas anywhere. But to be safe, I called the gas company to send out someone to check for leaks. The guy shows up with his super-duper gas sniffer, and checks everything -- the fireplace, the water heater, the furnace, all the pipes -- and not a peep out of his meter. Nor does he smell anything either.

The last thing he checks is the stove. Nothing around the burners, but when he opened the oven, the smell of gas was overpowering. Turns out that a seal went bad inside the oven, and it was filling with gas! We couldn't smell it because the seal on the oven kept the fumes in. Had we lit the stove or the oven burner, though, it probably would have blown up, severely hurting or maybe even killing whichever one of us did it. He turned off the gas to the stove and we aired out the place, and all is safe now.

So we go shopping for a new stove this weekend. My wife wanted to replace this old one anyway.

My main reason for posting this, though, is to advise anyone who has any kind of gas appliances in their house to get a gas detector. It turned out to be the best $60 we probably ever spent at Target.

MudHog

glad to hear yall found the culprit. Those little devices really come in handy.

Oil_Fan

Wow...just wow!!! I'm glad everyone is safe. I think I know what my next purchase is going to be now....

COBettaCouple

Worse than all-you-can-eat burritos night! Seriously, glad you had that alarm!

Chief_waterchanger

Glad you didn't get blowed up... as well as your significant other's lack of being blown up.

0morrokh

Wow, I'm glad you're all ok! Although the crazy side of me thinks it would be awesome to see an oven blow up, as long as there were no people in the vicinity.

Drea

thanks for the heads up, Joe...your guardian angel is looking out for you for sure and the detector thing too.

neverendingninja

So, you think your wife sabotaged the oven?!

Talk about planning ahead...she even talked you into buying that detector 4 years ago!

jsalemi

Nah -- it's just that it's the only appliance left that was here when we bought the house 18 years ago, and who knows how old it was then, so it's definitely outlived its useful life-span. We've talked for a while about replacing it, but with only the two of us, we just don't use the oven that often -- we can cook just fine on the stove top and in the microwave most of the time.

But it is the kind of failure you don't even think about when you read something about the average useful life-span of appliances. If memory serves, I think it's like 12-15 years for a stove/oven combo. The normal thought (at least in my case) is that it just wears out, gets rusty, too much caked-on food, stuff like that -- not that it develops a leak and turns into a ticking time bomb. So my second piece of advice (after the one about getting a gas detector) is if you have gas appliances, pay attention to their life-span.

MedicBiker

Shutting off the gas was a good idea, but that combo detector also measures CO (carbon monoxide) which is colorless and odorless. My first call would have been to the Fire Department. They have sniffers to detect both gas and CO - and I bet they would have gotten there much faster than the gas company. I am glad that you and yours are OK, but in the future it would behoove you to call the fire department first.

Whenever I start the coal stove in my basement, my smoke/CO detector goes off. I know it is from the smoke, but after I get it started, I have to walk all the way to the edge of my property to give my 4 year-old and 3 year-old the "ALL CLEAR" to come back inside.

Sorry to preach - but CO is called the "silent killer" - kind of like ammonia and nitrates

jsalemi

The detector distinguishes between gas and CO, which is how we knew it was a gas leak. We also have a CO detector down closer to the furnace, and that wasn't going off, so I had a double-check on which it was.