Friday, October 08, 2004
Ewwww! What's that smell???
Last night we found out that we have a gas leak in our house. I guess a couple of the women from the association (we live in a town home) were walking by, thought they smelled gas, and called the gas company. What was really creepy was that they had knocked on the door and neither of us heard them because we had both fallen asleep. Next thing I know, I am sitting in the loft watching tv and all of a sudden I look up and see a flashlight shining up on the ceiling. It was the guy from the gas company shining his flashlight in the window. I peered over the railing and yelled, "What the hell are you doing?" not knowing who it was and he motioned for me to come down and talk to him, that's when he told me what was going on and asked if he could come in and take some readings. I let him and he wasn't able to find anything. Because he couldn't, he suggested that the leak was quite possibly in the wall - GREAT! Then again, the guy was sort of a doofus so maybe he would be wrong. I mean about an hour into this whole ordeal, I look over at him and what do I see - him sitting in his truck smoking a cigarette of all things! Hello! Gas leak here, is that wise? DUH!
Anyway, the woman from the association who lives close and originally smelled the gas also came over and she called Mary from the property management company. Mary in turn called someone from the heating and cooling company to come out and have a look since they would be the ones who would have to take care of the problem if it were inside the house. They ended up turning the gas off and the guy from the heating and cooling place told me that he would have someone call me the next morning (today) and make an appointment to come out and start searching the wall for the leak. Wonderful. So what you are really telling me is that I am making an appointment to have one of the walls in my house torn up and depending on which bits are cut out, I may have to try and repair my paint job. This would be no easy task if they were to cut out portions from the plant ledge which face into the living room (see pic below).
Luckily, the two nice guys that came out this afternoon only had to cut one 18" square hole in the ceiling area just off to the right of what you can see in the picture in order to fix the problem and no paint was damaged. YIPPIE!! They were also very kind to the drywall - Thank God! From what we were told, there was a manufacturing defect in the flexible piping meaning the hole had been there ever since the house was built and we moved in! They theorized that the gas was leaking from the small hole out into the space between the piping and the plastic covering so it was sort of contained. They figured that this would be about the only way someone on the outside of the house would be able to smell the leak. More than anything it's lucky we didn't gas ourselves to death as neither Anthony or I could smell it. We can only guess that was because it was a slow leak which had been here all along and we got accustomed to it without knowing.
Right now we are just waiting for the work order to be processed so the drywaller can come patch the spot where the cuts were made. The guys from the heating and cooling company screwed the piece of drywall back in so there wasn't a gaping whole to look at but of course it still needs to be professionally fixed. The good thing is that since all of this was caused by a manufacturing defect, the association will cover all the costs. The bad part is that more than likely, they will take the cost, average it across all the houses in the association and raise the dues which means in the end, we will pay a portion. Oh well, it's fixed and that is most important.
Knocked Off By The Fashion Diva
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