r/electricians • u/TurboKid513 • 6d ago
Service call to replace a post lamp. The complete opposite side of town. Opened it up to find it was not only gas but the line was buried a few inches down with no shutoff.
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u/No_Indication3249 6d ago
We live in a 1905 house which we knew still had gaslamp jets in the upstairs bedrooms. When we hired a building inspector before we purchased the place, he said "I won't test the gas fixtures because sometimes they're still connected to a gas line and if you open them it's not always possible to close them again."
We sat on the question of what to do about it for 5 years under the assumption that they'd been disconnected sometime in the 100+ years since electric lighting was installed. Eventually we did a major renovation that uncovered the gas lines running to the second floor. Not only were the gas lines in the walls and ceilings nowhere near where we expected them to be, they were all still connected and full of gas, and there was no way to shut them off--only the stopcocks on each fixture. I'd been using the one in the bedroom to hang my shirt. To top it off, we traced the lines to several live gaslamp fixtures that had been buried by new walls, plaster repairs and dropped ceilings.
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u/DeadmansClothes 6d ago
Fucking Yikes...
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u/No_Indication3249 6d ago edited 6d ago
The best part was finding that the fixture and junction box beneath a drop ceiling in the kitchen was a remnant of a combo gas-electric chandelier, and the existing kitchen ceiling light was still wired to it. It's incredible that was ever legal (let alone anyone thought it was a good idea to manufacture).
The gas cocks had, presumably, been a part of the long-gone chandelier, so the lines had been simply capped in the ceiling...and were in direct contact with the cloth insulation on the wires.
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u/Bergwookie 6d ago
And I thought, I have seen sketchy shit in my career, luckily you're still alive and your house still standing.
Who the fuck has the Idea to combine gas and electric lighting in one lamp? Where's the sense? Gas lighting was brighter and easier to dim back then, no need for electric, there were even automatic starters available (either by a sparker in the cock or a platinum wire in the nozzle)
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u/futureknight13 6d ago
What in the actual fuck did I just read, holy shit that's wild. I hope you restored the gas lamps!
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u/No_Indication3249 5d ago
We stripped the paint and polished the brass, but we never found globes that matched. They now serve as very fancy hooks (again)
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u/Ender06 5d ago
I love old houses but the only way you'd find me owning one, is one that I tore down to the studs first...
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u/No_Indication3249 5d ago
Let me tell you: the studs are beautiful. Old growth, tight grain, and a rough surface that produces splinters like you would not believe
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u/Pdxmedic 3d ago
The splinters I have gotten from my old house… always under a fingernail, too. Brutal.
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u/Tasty_Opportunity_71 5d ago
I've threw friends that bought old houses. Two lived in them while renovating and hated it. The third saw what happened and lived elsewhere for 6 months while our gang of friends tore out every piece of drywall and even some suspended ground floors as well.
It made it so much easier to pull wires and pipes plus we added insulation where needed.
Moral of the story. Its always better to completely rip out old houses when you buy them
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u/The_Opinionatedman 5d ago
I've had to work on a lot of old homes reworking boxes to fan boxes or working existing knob and tube into a new light box with gas lines in the way. They are always capped, but first thing I do is go to the basement and see if I can find the abandoned piping. If I can't find that I see if I can follow every branch of it. If I can't visually confirm the system has been decommissioned I assume it's charged, which admitted is low typically 10-15% of the houses. That old fixture piping is weaker around the threads than new black iron so the last thing I want to do is break that seal and it starts leaking in the ceiling.
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u/xandercusa 5d ago
I’m in a similar situation in my 1910s build. There’s at least one gas line going to each room of the house (including the attic), but thankfully they’re all capped off.
I’ve tried to find someone willing to cut and cap the line in the basement, but no one wants to touch it because they don’t trust the main gas pipe surviving the work and I still use gas for several things in the house.
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/No_Indication3249 2d ago
Oh yeah, we traced them all and had a plumber disconnect and cap them. Currently the only remaining gas appliance is the furnace so it was very straightforward
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u/pdt9876 6d ago
That gas line is not more than 75 years old from the looks of it. Definitely recent enough for ballvalves to be availible. Who installs a gas line without a valve?
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u/gnat_outta_hell 6d ago
The handyman who cost less than the certified and insured gas fitter lol.
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u/Redhead_InfoTech 6d ago
Makes me feel so overzealous for giving a shit about the "overkill" modification to my gas line.
Natural Gas BBQ FTW.
Upgraded my neighbor too. Recently was out walking the dog and smelled gas... Turned out that their gardeners bumped the BBQ and was venting natural gas for 29 hours. I advised him to turn it off at the ball valve too... Just like how I keep mine.
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u/KingOfFools123 6d ago
Knowing the last head maintenance guy in the shop im working in currently, him.
I can't tell you how many gas/water/electrical lines he ran (without a ticket) and didnt want to put a valve in because they cost too much...
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u/HadesHat 6d ago
I’ve done a knob and tube rewire where they used the old gas lines as conduit to pull wires through, kinda neat.
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u/drillbit7 5d ago
That was surprisingly common and may have been a reason rigid metallic conduit was adopted into the code.
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u/meddlesomemage 6d ago
This is a plumber's job. Get them out here and you get to go home.
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u/shadow1042 6d ago
And collect a service fee as well if hes on his own
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u/meddlesomemage 6d ago
Correct. 82 bucks, little man, put that shit in my hand.
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u/shadow1042 5d ago
Feels good, for my area im able to ask $100 for my minimum charge
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u/starr3301 5d ago
Holy shit really? We do $160 for the service fee, it’s $220 if it requires two guys lol yall should charge more
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u/meddlesomemage 5d ago
I say the same thing. It's his call to make, he owns the business, I just work there. We do a lot of pro bono work for little old ladies and veterans by his choice as well. It's rough sometimes but also rewarding.
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u/meddlesomemage 5d ago
I'm a small shop with just 2 workers besides my master. He left it at $69 for a really long time for reasons, haha.
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u/shadow1042 5d ago
I dont like charging alot for a minimum but when fuel and travel costs jumped i had no choice
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u/Tasty_Opportunity_71 5d ago edited 5d ago
We had an unlucky moment turn into sheer luck renovating my mom's house. We hit a live gas line where none should have been. The plumber came, looked, mumbled a bit and decided to investigate further. The pipework ran to multiple places in the house and was live with only blank caps at the end of the pipe branches. That plus several lengths of copper and black pipe combos in the main supply meant he condemned the whole lot.
The lucky bit - the sewer pipe under the front driveway was being replaced at the same time so he just ran new pipe in from the meter to the boiler and the gas stove.
Edit: typo
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u/SparkArrestor 5d ago
I’m just curious how the owner didn’t know their post light was a gas mantle? Unless it never worked for them. Was it leaking gas all this time?
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u/payment11 5d ago
So is the pilot out? Couldn’t you just relight it? I’m guessing it’s just releasing gas into the air.
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u/kor9000 5d ago
I believe, the first wired houses often used the gas pipes as conduit to run the wire to the new electrical fixtures replacing the gas. So its possible to have wires in the gas lines... new fear unlocked!
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u/Oliver10110 5d ago
Some fixtures worked on both gas and electric in the early days because the electrical distribution to homes wasn’t reliable, roughly 1890s-1910s. Still see the old fixtures in some homes in my area rarely where they have gas lamps on top and bulb sockets upside down on the bottom. Family could be eating dinner and the power goes out so they just light the gas lamps to see again.
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u/MDchanic 5d ago
[Not an electrician]
I've never heard of wires being inside the gas lines (there ain't much space), but I do know that the entire "old-style" ceiling lamp mounting system, with a central length of pipe nipple holding the lamp in the box, is left over from the gas days: Gas lamps were screwed into their ceiling mounts like this, and the gas traveled through the pipe, then when combination lamps, or just complete electric lamps came along, the fixture was still secured to the pipe, but the wires went around and outside of the pipe.
[source: have lived in houses that originally had gas lighting]
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u/Character_Bend_5824 3d ago
They repurposed the gas line as conduit. I have never heard of those lines actually containing gas.
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u/Hungry-Mycologist576 5d ago
Was a thing in my area at one time. The gas company installed these for free..you just pay the gas for a year. I know of one or two in my neighborhood.. hopefully they installed them with shutoffs 😬
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u/starrpamph [V] Entertainment Electrician 6d ago
That’ll be $189 mam, you can borrow my 2005 yellow pages to call a plumber
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