DIYRob24
New Member
I'm hoping to get the opinion of plumbers who regularly install black pipe for gas/propane lines, not necessarily the 'perfect world' opinion. I've read many threads on this topic, and obviously stringent testing should be done on gas lines to make sure they are leak tight. But do most plumbers just install the line and do the pressure test required by code and if it passes the job is considered done?
The reason I ask this is the normal testing that building inspectors or gas companies do doesn't seem very stringent to me. It's not that hard to maintain pressure for 15 minutes or a few hours when there's a small leak. I've spent the last week installing black pipe for propane and easily maintained pressure for an afternoon, but noticed a 1 PSI pressure drop overnight. This was probably influenced by temperature change, but I ended up finding a small leak after soaping the joints. I ended up disassembling and reassembling to fix.
I try to be as much of a perfectionist as I possibly can be, but I'm wondering if I'm fretting too much about having a perfect system. I have a hard time believing that the majority of plumbers will test each connection for leaks if they have maintained pressure for say an hour or two. Tracking down a tiny leak (that may or might not even exist) and disassembling part of the line could add a day or two to a job and end up costing a lot of $$$.
This also brings me to safety. A large gas leak is obviously dangerous, but small ones do seem innocuous considering that there's probably millions of homes with small gas/propane leaks occurring within them on both old systems and newly installed systems. I'm under the understanding that it takes a large quantity of gas to ignite. After all, gas is considered a safe form of fuel for homes and if small leaks were very dangerous, gas lines wouldn't be permitted in homes. I'd also think that gas/propane companies would require annual testing if it were very dangerous even though they are not liable for the lines inside the home.
The reason I ask this is the normal testing that building inspectors or gas companies do doesn't seem very stringent to me. It's not that hard to maintain pressure for 15 minutes or a few hours when there's a small leak. I've spent the last week installing black pipe for propane and easily maintained pressure for an afternoon, but noticed a 1 PSI pressure drop overnight. This was probably influenced by temperature change, but I ended up finding a small leak after soaping the joints. I ended up disassembling and reassembling to fix.
I try to be as much of a perfectionist as I possibly can be, but I'm wondering if I'm fretting too much about having a perfect system. I have a hard time believing that the majority of plumbers will test each connection for leaks if they have maintained pressure for say an hour or two. Tracking down a tiny leak (that may or might not even exist) and disassembling part of the line could add a day or two to a job and end up costing a lot of $$$.
This also brings me to safety. A large gas leak is obviously dangerous, but small ones do seem innocuous considering that there's probably millions of homes with small gas/propane leaks occurring within them on both old systems and newly installed systems. I'm under the understanding that it takes a large quantity of gas to ignite. After all, gas is considered a safe form of fuel for homes and if small leaks were very dangerous, gas lines wouldn't be permitted in homes. I'd also think that gas/propane companies would require annual testing if it were very dangerous even though they are not liable for the lines inside the home.
