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How to Check or Abandon Old Gas Lighting Pipes & Fixtures PlumbingAPedia © Enter your search terms Submit search form   Search This Website - InspectAPedia.com How to inspect, report, & correct antique or old gas lighting piping & fixtures Home inspection report language examples

This document provides free sample draft home inspection report language for reporting defects in oil and gas piping at residential properties. Here we provide descriptions and photographs of unsafe gas piping, indications of unsafe or improperly operating gas appliances, gas meters, and other gas installation defects are provided. General safety warning: improper installation and even improper inspection and testing methods involving natural or "LP" gas can involve dangerous conditions and risk fire or explosion. If you smell gas you should leave the building immediately and should do so without doing anything that could create a spark such as operating a light switch or telephone. From a safe location, call your gas company's emergency line and/or your fire department. The text provided here is a working draft and may be incomplete or inaccurate. Contact us to suggest text changes and additions and, if you wish, to receive online listing and credit for that contribution. Also see How to Report Defects in Oil Piping. NOTICE: while example report language is provided here, reproduction of this or any of our web pages or their contents at other websites or in printed documents for sale is prohibited. © Copyright 2008 Daniel Friedman, All Rights Reserved. Information Accuracy & Un-Biased Reporting are Assured for this website - see pledge link at below-left.

How to inspect, report, & correct antique or old gas lighting piping & fixtures

Evaluating old gas lighting and other gas fixtures and fittings in older homes. It may be possible to make safe use of gas lighting in homes, both indoors and out, provided that the piping and fixtures have been installed according to contemporary building codes and that the piping and fixtures are in good condition. But here we address the discovery of antique gas lights and piping in homes. Generally such fixtures and pipes should be considered a safety hazard, unless the system has been thoroughly inspected and brought to modern safety standards.

The photograph at the top of this page shows our discovery of an antique indoor gas lighting fixture which was being used as a towel rack. The building owner had always assumed the gas piping was inactive. The photographs shown just above are a reminder that a building owner or her home inspector should never assume that old gas lines in a building are no longer connected to a gas source. While the gas piping routes in some older Victorian homes have often been converted to use for electrical wiring, often we've been surprised to find that supposedly long-abandoned gas fixtures, pipes, and fittings, are actually still active, and potentially dangerous. These photographs show still-active gas-lighting piping in homes built around 1900, with the gas fittings still active nearly 100 years later! A child pulling on the towel on that funny "towel rack" could have resulted in a catastrophe.

*** Safety:We recommend that unused gas equipment be removed and that you have the unused section of gas line properly sealed by a qualified plumber or by your gas supplier. Leaky old appliances or gas lines are dangerous.

Immediate LP or natural gas safety hazards: if there is evidence of an LP or natural gas leak at a building, gas odors, for example, you should:

• Do not do anything that is likely to cause a gas explosion, such as lighting a match, operating an electrical switch, or even using a telephone in the building
• Leave the building immediately
• Notify other building occupants of the safety concern
• Contact the local gas company and/or fire department

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Technical Reviewers

Particular thanks are due to experts and also consumers who read these articles and suggest corrections, changes, and additions to the material. Content suggestions, technical corrections and content critique are invited for any of the content at our website.

• Daniel Friedman - InspectAPedia.com ^TM Website Author/Editor
• National Fuel Gas Code, ANSI Z223.1-yyyy - American Gas Association / National Fire Protection Association
• LP-Gas Serviceman's Handbook,Fisher-Rosemount, Fisher Controls
• National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Pamphlets No. 54 and 58.
• Specifications for Gas Installations, Central Hudson Gas and Electric Corporation
• "Gaslight", Gary Quilliam, The Old House Journal, March/April 1989 article describes fixtures, modern fixtures, and sources of supply.
• Residential Gas Hot Water Heater Pocket Partner - Testing and Trouble Shooting, 19. State Corp., Ashland City, TN 37015
• Also See: - HW Boilers: Leaks, Corrosion, Expansion Tanks, Air Purge
• Critique, contributions wanted: Contact Us to suggest text changes and additions and, if you wish, to receive online listing and credit for that contribution.

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