Average Jane’s House, It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas

The people who built and lived in our house before us must have been huge proponents of the natural gas industry. We’ve spent the last twelve years removing all manner of extraneous gas pipes leading to various questionably safe gas appliances. My favorite was the copper(!) tubing that once led to an outdoor barbecue grill, but let’s not forget the copper tubing that ran from our water heater to the fireplace.

Yesterday I finally had a plumber come out to address a gas leak in our basement that we’d been ignoring for years. Heck, it had probably been at least five years since I had the gas company come out and tell me that, yes, I had a gas leak, but it wasn’t bad enough to blow up the house and I should probably hire a plumber and get it taken care of. I’m a little slow sometimes.

The plumber discovered that the leak was from pipes leading to a gas heater in the wall between our kitchen and guest room. When we bought our house, the inspector made a point of telling us that we should never dream of attempting to use the heater. When we had our roof redone earlier this year, we let the construction crew remove the heater’s chimney, and one day I hope to yank the whole thing out and get an extra 6 inches of wall depth back in each room it occupies.

I guess the leak was getting pretty bad because the plumber told us we might see a difference in our gas bill. Yeesh. That never even occurred to me. It’s one thing when a sink is dripping or a toilet is running, but you don’t think about dollar signs flying out the windows when you smell a little gas.

Of course, that led me to a paranoid Google search to see if we’d been poisoning ourselves all this time. The more trustworthy-looking sites seemed to agree that the health hazards are minimal for a minor gas leak, but that there’s evidence that allergies and asthma might be made worse by one. Hmm, maybe my husband isn’t allergic to the cats after all…

So for a mere $200 we now have a basement that doesn’t smell like a faulty gas stove. At this point, the only gas appliances left are the water heater and furnaces. Why couldn’t the previous homeowners have been into solar power?

On an unrelated note, I just came down with my first cold of the season, which has taken the form of a nasty sore throat. I am trying my utmost not to whine about it, and hoping that Zicam and Airborne keep its duration to a bare minimum. I’m not feeling too optimistic about singing at band practice tonight, though. Sigh.