Slashdot Mirror
Colorado Woman With Flammable Water Fears Blast
Amee Ellsworth says she is terrified that her home could blow up because of natural gas that has seeped into her water supply. She can ignite the water with a lighter from faucets in her kitchen or bathroom. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission determined the gas is coming from a leak in one of eight active gas wells within a half-mile radius of the Elllsworth's home. Amee should look on the bright side. Not everyone gets to take a shower that cleans and sterilizes all at once.
Can someone please tell her to stop igniting the water from her faucets with a lighter?
A creative homeowner could turn this potential disaster into a windfall... install an entrained gas separator on the incoming water line and harvest the natural gas heating fuel. Not exactly for the faint of heart, but better than waiting for your house to blow up if you leave your faucet on.
A quick google search revealed that methane is fairly insoluble in water - so it must be in gaseous form, entrained bubbles of natural gas. That means there's a real danger of build-up if the water is left on.
Now my question is, is this the stinky gas, or the odorless kind? (Natural gas normally has an odorant added because otherwise it's nearly impossible to detect.) If it's leaking from an active well, it might be odorless - which is obviously extremely dangerous: you wouldn't even be able to smell a gas build-up.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
...why does it have to be in idle?
I'm a licensed water well driller and pump tech in NY, although I've been out of the business for a few years.
There is A LOT of shallow natural gas around here and I'm very familiar with running into it. When it's in very small proportions you can only tell by a slight discoloration on the tools, when it's moderate you can taste it slightly (if you know what you're looking for) and when it's extensive you can hear it in the well.... You can also do a lot of fun things like light the bathtub on fire, and place a bucket over the well to accumulate the gas... then toss a match into it to for a nice fireball to really impress the homeowner.
There are indeed methods of extraction, I've seen heaters and outside lamps run off of wells... although I have doubts about the insurabilty of houses using some of the more creative methods. But generally speaking there are few safety issues with even large amounts of gas in a private well, since water systems are a very inefficient method for transferring natural gas and there are some rather simple methods of avoiding/minimizing it.
The simplest (and IMO best) method is a PVC boot to go around the pump itself; the gas does not mix with the water but is constantly rising out of it, so a proper pvc boot forces the pump to draw water from above itself as the water is drawn down the gas continues to rise. Follow that with a decent water filter and you can remove all traces of gas by the time it reaches your tap.
The net cost of this is a slightly lessened lifespan of the pump itself due to heat buildup.
now the fun stuff.....
We got a call once from an older lady who swore that neighbor kids were hiding her well-cap and she wanted to buy a lockable one, while there we noticed deep grooves that had dug into the well casing from the cap screws. The only way for that to happen was if someone were pulling the cap off without loosening the screws, judging from the depth of the grooves that was NOT happening unless her neighbor kid was Chuck Norris (sorry obligitory reference...). A little further inspection revealed a bare spot on a wire that would arc when the water level was low enough. It was igniting the semi-trapped gas and blowing the cap off like a 40 foot potato gun.
I once blew my eyelashes off, most of my eyebrows, and singed the hair on my temples... when I accidently ignited a very active bubbler. I had jerked my head back instantly but it wasn't fast enough. The sudden wash of flame rising out of that pitchblack depth was one of the coolest things I have ever seen; and for a while I thought it would be the last thing I'd ever see, then I realized that my eyelashes had melted together and I simply couldn't open my eyes.