With winter weather to stay, Ameren Illinois is giving some natural gas safety tips for the peak heating season.
Natural gas is relied on by many Ameren customers to cook food, heat water, and for keeping homes warm during the chilly days.
Ameren Illinois’ Public Awareness Supervisor Gina Meehan-Taylor says that gas leaks can happen in older pipes and connectors. “A lot of times we’ll find a fittings on the gas piping that’s leaking due to maybe the sealant is old and has crumbled away, or sometimes behind your stove you’ll have a gas connector, a flex connector, and a lot of times those are old and the older ones get brittle and can break.”
She adds that sometimes piping uses copper fittings which then become brittle over time.
Meehan-Taylor says if you detect a rotten eggs smell in your home, to evacuate and call emergency personnel immediately. The natural gas supplier says that if you detect a rotten egg smell in your home to stop and contact emergency personnel immediately.
Meehan-Taylor says that Ameren adds that smell to natural gas. “We actually add liquid odorant to the natural gas and we add it at a pound of liquid per million cubic feet of gas. So it doesn’t take very much liquid to make that gas smell, and you can smell it way before it becomes dangerous, but that’s when we want you to call it in right when you smell it.”
Calls of a gas leak are immediately escalated to an emergency and a crew is dispatched to the area.
Ameren Illinois handles all gas leak investigations, but first responders may arrive on the scene to evacuate areas if needed.
