Towns Gas

T

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Hi all.

As a (relativley) young person i have a q for sum of the more mature people here !

What was Towns gas ? I noticed while servicing an old Housewarmer the other day it had values for this on the data badge. Was it similar to LPG ? And why was it fazed out ? Was natural gas a better option ?

Prob a really boring q tbh, but its something ive never heard of apart from a brief mention in my ACS course 4.5 yrs ago, which i A: neither understood fully then and B: can't remember !
 
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As far as I know, it was made by heating coal in a big oven and the gas that came off was piped to houses, I believe it was phased out because it was poisonous (remember the stories about suicides by putting heads in the gas oven...) and gas was discovered in the north sea, beleive that was around late 60's / early 70's


Well, thats how I undertsand it, but feel free to correct me... I'm just a trainee spark, and wasn't born until the mid 80's ...
 
Town gas was a mixture of Coal Gas (created by fractional distillation of coal, i.e. making it very hot in a sealed container so hat it broke down and various gases, oils and tars came off; mixed with hydrogen and carbon monoxide (created by blasting hot steam through the red-hot coke solids remaining in the sealed container, which caused the breakdown of the Carbon and the water vapour, by the oxygen in the water partially combining with the carbon in the coke to give carbon monixide (which is both flammable and very poisonous) and hydrogen (which is very flammable).
 
Yes, it had a different calorific value so there was a massive excercise throughout the whole country for which most of British Gas staff were employed in the first place, to change the jets on all gas equipment.

Town gas included carbon monoxide so it was an easy way to kill yourself.

The beauty of carbon monoxide as a method is that if you change your mind and try to get away from it the extra physical effort will yield no fruit and you will die where you are. You wouldn't have ever met one of those people who were making a statement through their attempted suicide in A and E that stuck their head in the oven. If you wanted to find them you would have had to go to the cemetary.

Natural gas is more dangerous in the sense that it is more explosive, but if yoiu tsick your head in a natural gas oven you would only die if the ratio gas to air was 5 to 15% and there was a source of ignition. Hence you never hear of people commiting suicide puting their head in the oven.

Natural gas is mainly methane but has small amounts of propain and butain to vary the calorific value so suppliers can match what is writen on your gas statement and an inert carrier, nitrogen, plus a little glycol to stop leaks in the old mains which is under far greater demand than it was ever intended for.
 
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Paul Barker said:
but if yoiu tsick your head in a natural gas oven you would only die if the ratio gas to air was 5 to 15% and there was a source of ignition.
Click to expand...

would imagine there is a point where the concentration of gas and hence lack of oxygen would cause suffocation.
 
Very true, but if you changed your mind you could get out.

Isn't it so that if we are called to a house and we see through the window the folk are lying dead on the floor we aren't alowd in, we have to call the HSE who send men in white suits with analysers poke them through letter box and give us permission to go in.

As a nurse I am advanced life support trained, the first rule is, is it safe to approach? In suspected CO poisoning it may definately not be safe to approach.
 
How can the Glycol stop leaks?

I always thought it was to stop the water in the gas pipes freezing?

Tony
 
An us poor buggers from the council estates.......yes they did have them in the stix...until Th***her....used to burn coke cuz it was cheaper than coal.I use the term "burn" loosely :rolleyes:...And Christie @ 10 Rillington Place used to asphixiate young ladies with the gas from the mains :eek:
 
a plumber once told me that natural gas hasn't got a particularly strong smell, so they add an odour to it so we humans can sniff a leak.

don't know if this is true though?
 
yes. natural gas is odourless.they add the smell for detection. they also not too long back added a lubricant which *******ed a load of gas valves.
 
Yes that correct ! The smell of Town Gas is added to odourless natural Gas.

Paul wrote """As a nurse I am advanced life support trained, the first rule is, is it safe to approach? In suspected CO poisoning it may definately not be safe to approach."""

I may be wrong but I think that any regulations relating to that do require the regular attendance on refresher courses and he has probably been on the gas too long.

If I came across a housefull of prostrate bodies then I would drag them out in case they were not dead yet.

Tony
 
Town gas is normally reserved for the poor people who live in towns, I believe you have a special bucket to collect it once a week, in the countryside ( where I live) gas is free & we have slaves..I think they may be coloured but I can`t be bothered to lift my neck & peruse the vineyards...
 
Agile said:
If I came across a housefull of prostrate bodies then I would drag them out in case they were not dead yet.

Tony
Click to expand...

The problem with that, is that if they are dead from asphyxiation, and there are, say four dead bodies in there, shortly after you go in there will be five, making more avoidable work for someone else.
 
Nah, just hold your breath, have to do it all the time in this business with some of the dumps and low life you have to deal with.

Moved a pot off a hob last week and a load of flys came out of it - so much rotten food it was like working on a landfill site.

Nearly got overdosed by air freshners on Thursday - all part of the job. :) the tenants can't be a***d cleaning so they fill the flat with air freshners.
 
D

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