DS Left the gas stove on....

[chiefmickeymouse]

Here we sit in the freezing cold with all of the windows open. I am very thankful that I have a dog to take out before bed, because if I didn't I would have just gone to sleep...and maybe that would have been it for all of us.

Does anyone know how long we have to keep the windows open? It's a pretty big house, about 3200 sf, and I guess the gas was on for about 3 hours.

 

[ronandannette]

Call the fire department immediately. They will be able to advise you.

 

[leebee]

Seriously, get out of the house and call the fire department for advice.

 

[brockash]

Okay, probably not a popular post, but I've done this a few different times and yes because I can be somewhat dumb and naive have never even thought of opening the windows. I get that it sounds so stupid, but it just never crossed my mind. We've never had a problem and I've left it on for up to 4 hours before. It's the first time we've ever had a gas stove, and I'm not a fan.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Brokash - do you smell any gas? Go down into your basement and sniff. Go to any crawlspace and sniff. If you don't smell any gas, close up the windows and go to bed. Seriously.

There are two kinds of gas that's used in homes. On is natural gas: this is the stuff that's piped in to homes by a utility company. It is lighter than air and tends to dissipate quickly. (Chiefmickeymouse, is this what you have? I think it's pretty rare for a house on natural house to go boom from a leak, although it DOES happen, so always, always be careful!) Propane is the gas the is stored in a tank on your property. It's heavier than air and will collect in your basements or crawlspaces. This is the more dangerous form of gas.

Gas will be easy to smell here in the states as it will always have a rotten egg smell. If there is a STRONG Gas smell, GET THE EFF OUT. DO NOT STOP AND CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. If you dial your phone inside, you may cause a spark that make the house explode! Do not unplug or plug in ANY electrical devices. Do not use a lighter. Don't do ANYTHING that may cause a spark. Just calmly, quietly, collect up all the people and animals in the house and get out!

If you just barely smell the rotten eggs, open your windows, don't do anything to cause a spark, shut off the source of the lead, wait until you don't smell the gas, then close the windows and be thankful you caught the leak before it became strong!

 

[KristaTX]

Was the gas stove lit, or was the gas on and not lit? Is it even dangerous if the gas was lit? I never thought it was. Restaurants use it all day, as do gas water heaters and gas fireplaces.

If it wasn't lit, how did he turn it on? Is he a teen who was cooking, or a small child who turned on just the gas? The latter would be a concern, obviously.

Either way, I hope everything is okay.

 

[aprilgail2]

Was the gas stove lit, or was the gas on and not lit? Is it even dangerous if the gas was lit? I never thought it was. Restaurants use it all day, as do gas water heaters and gas fireplaces.

.

I'm thinking it must not have been lit otherwise there is no problem. The self cleaning mode of the oven runs for 4 hours and i have certainly had it on well over 4 hours on our marathon baking days- some days up to 10 hours for baking!

 

[pumba]

the new gas stoves are so easy to even brush up against the knobs and turn it on by mistake...this has happened to us and I just opened the windows and waited until I couldnt smell the odor any more...cause it is gross..
Maybe turn on a fan too...
good luck.
OH YAH...My daughter in law takes her knobs off too after using...cause it is so easy to have this accidently turn on

 

[ilovemk76]

Get a carbon monoxide alarm. We keep one by the entrance from the garage.

 

[KristaTX]

A carbon monoxide-only detector won't detect natural gas. Just the CO. Natural gas isn't CO, although I think burning it may produce some CO.

 

[chiefmickeymouse]

Thanks for all the replies. As you can see, we made it through the night.

DS is 15. He just didn't turn the knob all the way to off. It's natural gas. The smell wasn't strong, I didn't notice until I went out and came back in. I even had candles lit near the stove and nothing happened. We kept the windows open for a couple of hours and had the fans on. Went to bed about 12:30.

We do have Co detectors and I didn't know until we looked it up last night that they didn't catch the gas unless it was lit. Today we are going to buy natural gas leak detectors. This is a new house and I had no idea I had to worry about this. It is really easy to move the knobs and not know it, particularly since the stove top is on a bar where we tend to hang out.

One more reason I am so glad to have out little dog. Without her we would have just gone to bed.

 

[chiefmickeymouse]

the new gas stoves are so easy to even brush up against the knobs and turn it on by mistake...this has happened to us and I just opened the windows and waited until I couldnt smell the odor any more...cause it is gross..
Maybe turn on a fan too...
good luck.
OH YAH...My daughter in law takes her knobs off too after using...cause it is so easy to have this accidently turn on

This is exactly what happened to us. Taking the knobs off is a good idea.

 

[chiefmickeymouse]

A carbon monoxide-only detector won't detect natural gas. Just the CO. Natural gas isn't CO, although I think burning it may produce some CO.

I didn't know this until last night. This is something everyone who has natural gas should know. Plus, the gas companies website was down last night and no one answered the phone.

 

[chiefmickeymouse]

Brokash - do you smell any gas? Go down into your basement and sniff. Go to any crawlspace and sniff. If you don't smell any gas, close up the windows and go to bed. Seriously.

There are two kinds of gas that's used in homes. On is natural gas: this is the stuff that's piped in to homes by a utility company. It is lighter than air and tends to dissipate quickly. (Chiefmickeymouse, is this what you have? I think it's pretty rare for a house on natural house to go boom from a leak, although it DOES happen, so always, always be careful!) Propane is the gas the is stored in a tank on your property. It's heavier than air and will collect in your basements or crawlspaces. This is the more dangerous form of gas.

Gas will be easy to smell here in the states as it will always have a rotten egg smell. If there is a STRONG Gas smell, GET THE EFF OUT. DO NOT STOP AND CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. If you dial your phone inside, you may cause a spark that make the house explode! Do not unplug or plug in ANY electrical devices. Do not use a lighter. Don't do ANYTHING that may cause a spark. Just calmly, quietly, collect up all the people and animals in the house and get out!

If you just barely smell the rotten eggs, open your windows, don't do anything to cause a spark, shut off the source of the lead, wait until you don't smell the gas, then close the windows and be thankful you caught the leak before it became strong!

This was what happened. Thanks for the words of advice.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

A carbon monoxide-only detector won't detect natural gas. Just the CO. Natural gas isn't CO, although I think burning it may produce some CO.

Yup! But it's a common mistake to make. If you use propane, there are natural gas detectors that you can buy though. If you have a basement, they should go low in the basement, otherwise just somewhere (not the ceiling) in a low, out of the way place in the house.

 

[I Love Pluto]

If you have a doubt - call your gas & electric company. They will come out - no charge - & inspect safety issues for you.

We had this happen the first night we moved into our home. The gas heater had a leak which we did not know about. The best 2 indicators of a problem were smell and exhaustion.

Our gas repair man told us that you should never hesitate to call. They would rather come to your home to inspect than to have a tragedy.

Solution - He opened the windows & patio door. He told us to go for a ride for about an hour with our dogs, then return. After an hour, we came back & closed the windows & doors. All was OK.

We purchased a carbon monoxide detector. It is still in our laundry room with the heater.
Get a good one.

 

[diznygirl]

Problem with calling the gas company or the fire department is that they don't consider it an emergency. We've done this and waited hours before someone came. We couldn't leave the house until they came, so that meant sitting outside with no dinner waiting with a small child. It was nutso. I tried to call and cancel once we figured out the problem, but they wouldn't let us. It's a shame because it's always made me not want to call unless the house is already on fire!

 

[I Love Pluto]

Problem with calling the gas company or the fire department is that they don't consider it an emergency. We've done this and waited hours before someone came. We couldn't leave the house until they came, so that meant sitting outside with no dinner waiting with a small child. It was nutso. I tried to call and cancel once we figured out the problem, but they wouldn't let us. It's a shame because it's always made me not want to call unless the house is already on fire!

Our gas & electric company came within 10 minutes. I assume we were very lucky!

 

[diznygirl]

Our gas & electric company came within 10 minutes. I assume we were very lucky!

I could have strangled everyone working that night at our company. When he finally got there he was there for only 10 minutes. I'm sure experiences vary. I found it odd that they didn't think it was something they should address ASAP.

 

[Sparkly]

I had to call regarding a smell which I wasn't sure of the source of in the summer and they came within an hour. We've had them in twice this year! Both times they didn't detect gas leaks thankfully.