Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1901-12-12
GAS METERS AND THEIR WAYS.
In Cases of Fire They Do Not Explode
According to Popular Notion.

The proneness of the average news
paper reporter to attribute cellar con-
fagrations to the explosion of gas me-
tiers represents what appears to be
an ineradicable race trait No amount
of contradiction and no accumulation
of proof that such an accident is an
impossibility seems to reach the news
gatherers, who go on reporting the ex-
plosion of gas meters-doubtless be-
cause the firemen have tradition that
meters are explosive, and give this
explanation of every fire which they
cannot otherwise account for.
For the reinsurance of nervous peo-
pie, 1t gives us pleasure to say that no
gas meter ever exploded since the
world began, and until they are made
on very different plans and contain
gas of very different composition from
that now used for illuminating pur-
poses, such an accident is no more
likely to happen to them than to milk
bottles or salt bags. The domestic
gas meter has a more or less well de-
served reputation for habitual men
dacity, though as likely to lie against
the gas company as for it; but it has
never done anything to warrant the
suspicion that ii is liable to go off
with a bang. II is tin box of lit
tie less than one cubic foot capacity,
put together with soldered seams and
japanned. Into and through it passes
the gas, which enters through the serv-
ice pipe connecting the main with the
house-usually of half-inch diameter,
1t has very little capacity for gas stor-
age, and is not strong enough to carry
gas under a greater compression than,
say, half pound per square inch.
More than this would bulge its sides.
In point of fact the pressure CT gas
in meters is rarely more than enough
to balance a column of water two or
three inches high.
If a gas meter is exposed to great
heat from external fire, nothing very
serious happens. The soldered seams
will probably melt allowing the gas
to escape. This gas is not explosive,
however. 1t becomes so only when
mixed with air in certain definite pro-
portions. Should this admixture exist
in meter, which is almost impossible,
its shell is not strong enough to offer
any great resistance, and should an
explosion occur by reason of fire reach
ing this admixture of gas and air, the
meter would be wrecked, but it is
doubtful If any other damage would
result. None have been wrecked from
this cause. If the seams of the meter
are opened by melting of the solder
or by fracture from accident the gas
within it would escape, and, if it had
the chance, burn. Outside the meter
1t might have opportunity to form the
explosive mixture with air and do
some damage.
What actually happens in the case of
fires attributed to the explosion of gas
meters is usually this Gas which has
leaked from defective pipes or worked
into the cellar from broken or defect
i've street mains accumulates in peck
cts formed by rafters and elsewhere,
and remains there until it comes in
contact with an accidental fire of some
sort. A fire starts in the cellar, and
the temperature gradually rises until
the smoldering rubbish bursts into
flames. This reaches the mixture of
gas and air along the ceiling. and an
explosion follows. The meter, natur-
ally enough, is thrown down and prob
ably torn from its connections, and the
is reached that instead of
being the victim of the accident, the
lnoffensive meter is the cause OF all
the trouble and has INDUCED its in
herent propensity to set the house
afire, after lifting it from its founda-
tons.
II is perfectly safe generalization
that the gas which makes trouble in
cellars is wholly outside the meter. and
never inside OF It. Grindstones some
times explode with fatal results in saw
factories, but the excellent old lady
who. after reading Of such an accident
and recalling that there was an old
grindstone in one corner of the cellar
which. had been there 20 years. hired
a couple Of tramps to carry 1t to the
extreme corner OF the garden and pour
water on it for an hour. meanwhile
giving thanks that II had not blown
herself and family into eternity 'un.
to any OF u.s." was of the
type Of those who, through fear of gas
meter explosions, are all their life
time subject to nervous chills. There
is not a gas meter in use under which
|. would not be perfectly safe 20 build
a bonfire-provided. of course. there
was not a quantity OF gas outside of it
which the fire could reach.-New York