Berkeley First US City to Ban Natural Gas in New Buildings

[twintubdexter]

Priorities...

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I've lived in California all of my 69 years and have been through several "shakes". Same with my parents who were native Californians. Where I grew up, the house next door was owned by an elderly lady, Mrs. Leonard. She was from San Francisco and told fascinating stories of the 1906 Earthquake. Their house, on a hill, remained standing but many people sat on their front lawn and watched The City as it burned.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">The Loma Prieta quake was by far the worst I've experienced. Oddly enough I don't recall many fires in Santa Clara County being reported. Most of the damage was to brick chimneys, Earthquake insurance isn't much help when you have a typical $35,000 deductible unless you live in a mansion with a half-dozen fireplaces. and that was way back then. There were reports of self-induced arson since most people had fire coverage. I was at home at the time but went back to the Orchard Supply Hardware store I worked at to see if I could help. The store was heavily damaged on the inside. No power, the emergency generator (gas) did not kick in so it was pitch black. It was difficult to breath since entire aisles of volatile chemicals, many in glass containers, had fallen over. There was a sizable crowd outside demanding supplies. We had to escort people in and of course gave them what they wanted, flashlights, batteries, bottled water and the like...all free of course. It only took a couple of hours before we were out of just about everything. I personally don't recall anyone demanding a lawnmower or a Weber BBQ but there probably was.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">The one thing I do vividly recall is that after things died down and we went to lock the doors (difficult since the frames  were bent) was being told by people who refused to believe that we had nothing left "you might as well not lock those doors because as soon as you leave we're going to smash that glass and take what we want". The point here is that in the event of a large quake, your gas appliances may prove to be the least of your worries. I guess we all have different experiences when a crisis hits. Some people are saints, other change quickly into monsters.</span>

 

 

[this post was last edited: 7/23/2019-14:22]

 

[ea56]

Joe, I recall that there were several fires in the Marina area of San Francisco after the Loma Prieta quake. The other thing that I recall so vividly, was how unusually polite and considerate everyone was right after the quake. I was at work when it happened, and when I left to go home on Hwy 101, which even then had very heavy traffic at the evening commute time, I was prepared for pandemonium. I was shocked that every driver was so considerate and traffic moved very smoothly, with drivers allowing others to merge without speeding up and trying to crowd out the cars trying to merge. I guess everyone realized we were in the same boat and tried to be their best selves. Humanity sometimes is at its best during a crisis, and this was one of those times.

I had the radio on, and when I heard that a section of the Bay Bridge had collapsed, I was very worried what I was going to find when I got home. Thankfully, we had no damage. But after living thru so many quakes, it makes one wonder if the next big one will be the time that my luck runs out. However, when you’re a native Californian you learn that you can’t obsess over it, you just have to be prepared to cross that bridge when you come to it.

Eddie

 

[sudsmaster]

San Bruno gas main explosion

As I recall the San Bruno gas main explosion was not on an ordinary gas main, but on a high pressure 30 inch diameter steel transmission pipeline that just happened to be in that neighborhood. It took up to 1.5 hours for PG&E to shut off the gas.

There is speculation this pipeline was improperly installed, and PG&E was unable to provide the California Public Utilities Commission with records showing that the pipeline had been strength tested.

The pipeline had been installed in 1956 and the section that blew out had numerous welds, some of which were defective. Apparently PG&E kept raising the operating pressure to meet demand; the last recorded pressure was 386 lb/sq. in.

The disaster resulted in a number of reforms, such as installation of automatic shut-off valves, lowering gas pipeline pressures 20%, routine strength testing, etc. One pipeline in Woodside failed during a later strength test; it resulted in a mudslide but no fire and no injuries.

People who extol the greater safety of electric over gas might need to be reminded of the cause of the forest fire that destroyed the hilltop enclave of Paradise: high voltage electric transmission lines.

My own impression of PG&E is that it likes to play the role of a benevolent utility bringing needed energy to the people. The reality is that its management had become complacent and unwilling to take painful and costly steps to enhance the safety of its own customers.

PG&E went bankrupt after the costs of the San Bruno disaster added up; it has also raised gas rates to compensate for the additional costs of greater safety measures. And of course electric rates are rising as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion

 

[twintubdexter]

I promise, no more comments...

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Actually, the Marina fire started in one structure but spread to a few nearby buildings including 4-story apartment units which left many people homeless. I'm sure there were many other fires that never made the news because they weren't "sensational" enough. No "Towering Inferno" film (you gotta be old to remember that). Like when drivers slow down to view an accident, they want to see bodies. A morbid thought but very true. I hate earthquakes, fires and the like. Never experienced tornadoes, hurricanes or floods but I'm sure they're no fun either.</span>

[this post was last edited: 7/23/2019-15:38]

 

[ea56]

“People who extol the greater safety of electric over gas might need to be reminded of the cause of the forest fire that destroyed the hilltop enclave of Paradise: high voltage electric transmission lines.”

It’s not lost on me Rich that the electric lines are also a source of fire danger. I live just 10 miles from the devastation the Tubb’s Fire reeked on Santa Rosa on 10-7-17, when thousands of homes were burnt to the ground in a few hours. This fire was also a result of PG&E’s negligence in electric line maintenance. Even though this area is so close to me, to this day I can’t bring myself to drive by it for a look. It somehow seems ghoulish to view this misfortune that devastated so many lives.

Our county has changed forever as a result of that terrible disaster. The housing costs have shot thru the roof, and my little town is now swarming with way too many people, because there was no other place for these poor, displaced people to go. And they are the ones lucky enough to be able to afford the astronomical rents. The others are still living in trailers, campers, RV’s and tents.

And what has PG&E done? Why they’ve raised their rates and instituted surcharges to offset their expenses related to the fires. God forbid that they should use their profits to pay for the damage, the shareholders won’t have it and the PUC is only too happy to rubber stamp any rate increase that PG&E asks for.

One way to prevent such a future occurrence would be to start putting the power lines under ground. Our complex has all the power lines underground, much safer.

Eddie

 

[sudsmaster]

The main problem in the Marina, as I recall, were all the multi-level apartments and residences with "soft" ground floors. Typically these would be for parking with a separate garage door for each unit. Problem is, this makes the support for the rest of the floors inherently weak. Adding to that, the Marina district was largely built on landfill, ironically rubble from the 1906 Great Quake. This accentuated the shaking and encouraged the type of ground failure known as liquefaction. In one case, a four story apartment building collapsed into just two stories. A broken gas main nearby set it ablaze. However, only four died in the Marina District. Far worse was the carnage in the East Bay, where the elevated freeway known as the Cypress Structure collapsed its upper deck onto its lower deck, killing 42 and injuring many more.

Ironically, normally I would have been driving north on the lower deck of that freeway at that hour on a Monday after work. I had called in sick that day instead, and that may have saved my life. At home in El Cerrito, some 20 miles north of there, I felt the quake, and knew it was a big one. I had gone out to my garage to work on something when it hit. I got on my motorcycle a little later and went up to the Berkeley Hills, where you can see almost the entire Bay Area from the top. As night fell, we could see the fire in the Marina District, and transformer explosions down near where the Cypress Structure had been (we didn't know until later that it had collapsed).

 

[ea56]

Excellent recreation of the events of Loma Prieta Rich! It’s just as I recall the news unfolding on the TV.

BTW, I used to live in El Cerrito, off the Arlington, in 1962 the year my Dad died. I can just see in my minds eye what you witnessed across the Bay that evening from the Berkeley Hills. My Grandma had a Dry Cleaners on San Pablo Ave, Central Ave. Cleaners, not far from El Cerrito Plaza.

What good luck that you were sick that day, because if you’d been on the lower level of the Cypress Overpass, as you said, you could very likely not be here to tell of that day and night.

Thanks for sharing your memories.

Eddie

 

[sudsmaster]

Eddie,

Thanks.

As it turned out, I wasn't really sick that day. There was a lot of... turmoil at work... and I decided to take a day to ponder my next move. OK, the stress did have me out of sorts, but nothing that would have prevented me from working - had it been in a sane environment ;-).

When the quake struck, I was in the garage. I had a radio in there by the workbench, and I had just tuned it in at 5 pm to listen to the game. Within minutes - and this is the order I remember - the announcer stuttered something unintelligible, the radio went silent, and then the slow but definitely big ground motion started... sort of a rolling motion, like waves. I had put my bike in the driveway and while all this was happening, walked out to it to make sure it didn't fall over. It didn't. A box of two fell off a shelf, but I was far enough north of Loma Prieta, about 70 miles, and on firm enough ground, that there was no damage to the house that I could see.

 

[ea56]

OK Rich,

I swear, this is the last Loma Prieta post. I was at work in Santa Rosa, Calif. at the County Human service Dept., in the Medi Cal office, where I was a Lead Worker at the time. The rumbling started first, I looked at the clock it was 5:06pm, next the floor and the acoustical ceiling tiles started to roll, like waves on the ocean. I yelled to everyone, “Get under your desks”, many looked bewildered, I yelled again, “NOW, we’re having an earthquake”. There was a 2’X2’ support column right next to my desk and that was swaying violently. The office was on the first floor, with another floor above, in a reinforced cement building, that already had sustained damage during the 1969 quake, to the extent that the planned third floor was put off forever, because the building was deemed not sound enough for the additional floor, consequently there was a third stairway to nowhere. I was certain that my luck had run out and I was going to die with piles of reinforced cement on me.

The rolling seemed to go on for an eternity. When it was over everyone was in a daze. I was finished with work at 5:30pm, it was now about 5:11pm, the lights were out, the phones didn’t work and no one from management was giving any direction, so I said, screw it, I’m going home, and I left. Thats when I experienced one of the fastest, easiest,13 mile commutes home I’d ever driven, where my husband and I watched the San Francisco news all night to keep up with what was happening.

That earthquake made a believer out of me and I’m not so blasé about quakes, like I was before 10-17-89.

Eddie[this post was last edited: 7/23/2019-22:20]

 

[twintubdexter]

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Of course not all gas appliances are completely safe...</span>

 

[thomasortega]

The worst about being from a country that NEVER had an earthquake and then suddenly moving to Los Angeles and having engineering skills is driving around the city and seeing those "seismic tiles" bolted on the walls, specially on old brick buildings.

Any person that understands just a little bit about the dynamics during an earthquake understand that hardening the structure isn't always the best solution.

Specially in downtown area, when a big earthquake happens, most of those 2 or 3 floor buildings will certainly collapse.

The engineers at that time didn't deliberately design buildings to collapse. They just didn't have the knowledge we have nowadays.

Unfortunately, many people think that "retrofitting" made those buildings earthquake proof. It's exactly the opposite. The structural reinforcement actually made those building less resistant to an earthquake.

On the other hand I can remember some buildings that I had to park my car and look closer, to admire something I studied the theory in college but never had a chance to see it applied in a real building. First building is near the World Trade Center, in Downtown Los Angeles. The building was retrofitted with an external steel cage and the floors were split with shocks between them. During a strong earthquake, each floor can move freely, completely independent from the other floors. It won't be pleasant to be in that building during an earthquake because the rolling and jolts are actually amplified by the structure (that's how it dissipates the energy) but certainly that's a place you want to be to survive.

The other building is the Burbank airport. It was built under modern seismic engineering knowledge. The whole building is suspended in giant shocks and then the structure is extremely resistant and not flexible. Coincidentally, the same theory applies to washing machines. Making the story short, the Burbank airport is a giant front load washer.

And of course, there's the US Bank Building (Oue Skyspace), the tallest building in Los Angeles and also one of the most famous because Hollywood made that building collapse, burn and even be attacked by E.T.s and washed away by a giant tsunami in several movies and TV series.

Question number one when I arrived here was: Who is stupid enough to build such skyscraper in a city that everybody is waiting for the "Big One"? However, walking in front of the building, you look to the sidewalk and can easily understand.

Los Angeles can collapse, the whole city can slide into the ocean and the OUE Skyspace probably won't have even a cracked window and people inside it probably won't notice a magnitude 12 earthquake.

Now, back to gas... One thing I forgot to mention before and you can understand ONLY when you actually feel an earthquake.Earthquakes can't be predicted, there's no earthquake forecast system. We now have the annoying ShakeAlert but it doesn't "predict" earthquakes because it's impossible to predict one. It goes off when seismic sensors detect an earthquake so the closer you are from the epicenter, the shorter will be the gap between the alarm and the first shock wave.

Don't think "Oh, if an earthquake happens, i can run to the kitchen and turn off the stove." No, you can't. You have no time for that. Eventually you can feel some rolling or a very weak jolt a couple of seconds before a much stronger impact. but you may not be "alert" enough to process the information and understand that's an actual earthquake and in 1 or 2 seconds there's not much you can do, except drop, cover and hold on. Everything is quiet, normal and half second later the place you are turns into a giant cocktail shaker.

Of course, we can't be paranoid, we need to live, but we all must be ready.

My family spent 10 days visiting me and they couldn't understand why i have boxes of military food piled in my living room (I'm actually making two emergency kits, for here and for my father-in-law).

I still need to buy more flashlights, another lamp, some tools, make two DECENT first aid kits (because those that come ready are useless unless you need a lifetime stock of bandaid.), batteries and hand crank radios, blankets, ponchos, etc.

 

[sudsmaster]

Most homeowners in California keep a non-sparking (aluminum) wrench by the gas shutoff just outside their dwellings. I have one. In the case of a big quake, it's possible to turn off the gas to the structure. Of course, if the gas main itself starts a big leak, that's another story.

An automatic gas shutoff valve at the service entrance for structures would be better. I don't know if they are available or reasonably priced, though.

 

[thomasortega]

I have that wrench too. bought recently at Homo Depot. If I'm not mistaken it costed $3 or $4, which is very inexpensive and it also came with a zip tie to secure it to the gas meter.

Seismic valves are mandatory to all new connections. Here i'm a little bit safer because when the infamous williams wall furnace was replaced (A landlord's relative works at Williams and replaced it himself, he also installed a seismic valve). When I installed the stove, the gas hose came with a mix of seismic and overflow cut off valve. When the gas service was switched to our name, a SoCal Gas technician came to check everything, replaced the meter (which now has a built in seismic valve), instructed me how to rearm the valve (super easy, just close the valve, wait 10 seconds until the pressure builds up and pushes the pin next to the meter visor until it's visible and reopen the valve). Preferably I should use the valve to shut off the gas but in an emergency, if i have no tools to close the valve, i can just push the pin to manually trigger the seismic valve). When the seismic valve triggers, you can hear a hissle just like a pressure cooker for a fraction of second and it smells like gas. The valve in the meter was triggered 2 days in a row, during the two recent earthquakes. the valve under the wall furnace makes a loud mouse trap noise when it triggers and it has a spring that is a pain to reset. it's a small red box with a dome in one side and a lever that has two positions: "trigger" and "reset".

The laundry room has no seismic valve. A few weeks ago Kevin (Revvinkevin) generously helped me making the pipes for 3 dryers (actually he did most of the work because I couldn't help much with a broken foot) and now I regret I didn't use the opportunity to install a seismic valve there too, just in case. Those valves are very simple and cost under $50 at Homo Depot.

As I now have 3 gas dryers NOT VENTED OUTSIDE (ok, I know it is stupid but I have two windows that I never close plus a door that is always open) and I installed a Kidde CO detector with a CO level display. I ran a test with all dryer running for 1 hour at maximum temp with all the windows and doors closed (the laundry room mas hot as hell and of course i wasn't stupid to stay in the room) but even with that extreme scenario the reading was zero PPM of CO.

When I do laundry I usually wash everything first, then toss everything in the dryers, start them and leave the room immediately. If for some reason i have to start drying before I'm ready to leave the room, then I use the three electric dryers instead.

 

[combo52]

Seismic Gas Shut Off Valves Etc

Hi Thomas, if you have one of these at your meter that all you need.

 

As I have stated many times gas clothes dryers produce very little carbon monoxide because the flame burns in free air not touching cold metal, turning on a gas oven or even putting a full tea-kettle on top a gas range produces far more CM than an unvented gas clothes dryer, probably the most dangerous thing comes out the vent of a clothes dryer is ultra fine lint particles that go into your lungs and are know to cause cancer.

 

John L.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sudsmaster]

I did find a seismic shutoff valve on Amazon... about $120. The trick is that it must be perfectly level, which apparently can be tricky if the line before and after it is not level in x and y.

 

[Marky_Mark]

There is certainly a discussion to be had around the safety of natural gas and seismic valves, but that's not why Berkeley has banned gas in new homes.  Their motive was reportedly to reduce emissions.  In any case, I suspect one's risk from electrical fires and electrocution is far greater than the risk from natural gas (except perhaps on the day of a massive earthquake!).

 

Louis: it's common for homes in Spain to have central forced-air, ducted A/C -- especially newer homes.  Older homes may have split systems retrofitted.  More than half of Spanish homes have A/C.

 

As for indoor air quality, it's common in the US to use a high performance filter in the HVAC that provides excellent filtering like a whole house HEPA filter.  Whereas in Spain I've actually never seen people use anything but basic filters that are generally washable and are there primarily to protect the system from ingesting debris.  Personally I do use a HEPA style filter in my central ducted A/C, which also provides heat pump heating in winter.  Do these ducted A/C systems even exist in NL homes with your climate being much cooler than Spain?  I was born in the 1970s in the UK in a house that had forced-air gas central heating and again the filters were either non-existent or very basic back then. 

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

My long story-short: after Jim Bean w/ Cherry Ginger ale!

Does this mean anything that IS gas on the owner's preference or insistence, means a TANK?

Yes, I would say that it would be the only "earthquake" solution and one I would want, given that I would have to at least have to have a stove top that is gas, while everything else I'm okay with being electric (c'mon,it's CALIFORNIA, who needs HEAT?!)

-- Dave

 

[thomasortega]

"c'mon,it's CALIFORNIA, who needs HEAT?!"

I'm from Brazil... I'm used to temperatures much above 100F AND humid.

During the winter i use the Williams furnace with a fan in front of it AND an electric portable space heater AND an electric mattress protector AND a super thick duvet.

I love in the summer because gas is cheaper to run the furnace and it heats much faster.

Now the only problem I have is finding a thermostat that goes above 90F, so I won't need to take the thermostat apart to bypass it.

 

[foraloysius]

Ducted A/C systems are very rare here Mark. In the seventies some people installed forced air heating, but it wasn't widely accepted. Hot water heating is still big here. I guess a HEPA filter would help, but forced air systems still move dust around more than under floor heating. Nowadays in new buildings they install here not only under floor heating but also under floor cooling in combination with a heat pump.

 

[Marky_Mark]

This is an interesting point, Louis. Ducted systems with a high-performance filter will be capturing airborne dust, pollen, pet dander etc. in their filter. So the home will contain less dust overall, but even though it’s removing airborne dust, the airflow could be disturbing dust within the home that otherwise wouldn’t have become airborne. So does this mean that the home’s air will be cleaner overall or not? I don’t know.

I like underfloor heating. It’s very comfortable once it’s warmed up but is slow to respond.

How well does underfloor cooling work? I’ve never heard of that. I didn’t know it would be effective to cool a room using a chilled floor with no forced air movement. And I thought that the moisture would condense on the refrigerated floor leading to carpets with mildew and hard floors that are damp and slippery. [this post was last edited: 7/26/2019-08:51]