Gas Works

Gas Smell / Leak from meter area - is this normal?

Anonymous user 03/03/2024 - 3.10 PM

Hi there Question (hopefully not a stupid one) - is there a thing as natural leakage for gas in the home (i.e. meter/pipe work)?? Moved into a new property last week and located on the ground floor in a cupboard is the gas meter. The cupboard is an "under the stairs" type thing and has no ventilation and we noticed when we opened the door a smell of gas. Wasn't a strong smell but you could definitely tell it was gas. Called the Gas Emergency line and an engineer came out who did a test and changed the meter to a new one. A few days later, we opened the cupboard door and the gas smell was still there. Called the Gas Emergency line again and an engineer came out and said it must be the pipe work (as new meter installed). He turned off the gas and told us to call someone to look at the pipe work. Had someone come out this morning and they were baffled as to find any sort of problem. For the age of the property they actually said the pipe work was very good and could have been new as there was no "loss of pressure" at all during there testing ( don't know what that means but it seemed good.) Any advice would be good as I now have to go back to the Gas Emergency people and ask them is it OK to switch my gas back on and I'm not sure what they'll say. So back to my original question, could there be a natural leakage for gas from a meter or pipes around the meter in a cupboard with no ventilation?? Also, no where else in the house is there a smell of gas so it is just restricted to the cupboard. Regards Steve REVISED NOTE!!!!!: Further report from the gas man who is at my property (the above was typed on his first report this morning). He said there is a small, albeit very negligible leak of 0.5 mil (I'm guessing that's something like "parts per million") and the Gas Emergency people have a max limit of 4 mil so I'm within the range. I'm guessing as the cupboard has no ventilation the gas just builds up and sits there (so I'm going to install a grill on the door in the hope that it will disperse) Any advices on the above will be most welcome.