Australia's Science Forum

We have been enjoying our refurbed labs for all of this year but on a number of occasions I have reported the slight smell of gas.
Often the teachers couldn't smell it but they sent a plumber out to check and he said it was all ok.
Last week it happened again and one of the teachers could smell it so a different plumber came out.
As soon as he walked into the room the gas detector went off.
When they opened the cupboard where the mains are it stank of gas.
The school gas has now been off for 3 days as they dig looking for the pipes outside but now they think it is leaking under the slab somewhere as there is gas in all the surrounding soil.
Latest is that they may have to dig up the floor in one of the new labs!!!
They may be able to isolate it and run new pipes in but not looking good either way.
They have just ripped up some lino and pulled out a bench so my beautiful new labs. are already being ruined.
Can't believe it.
Lucky we didn't have an accident.
Helen

What was the outcome? Not too bad I hope.

Rita

What is it with new labs? We have a lovely newly reburbished lab and chemical prep/store room. It too had a gas problem - the smell of gas was extremely strong in the prep room on many occasions. We had the plumbers in 4 times before they isolated the problem and fixed it. I have ruined paint work and scratched benches because of it. Thankfully they have not had to dig anything up (could have been interesting though as we are upstairs.) I hope they sorted the problem out Cheltie without damaging the new labs too much.

Eventually they did find the leak after digging up part of the floor and taking out sections of the wall. The new vinyl on the floor is a slightly different colour to the rest but other wise not too bad. It took them ages to find and then repair it so we had lots of disrupted classes and no gas to the building for some time.
We still have a huge trench fenced off outside the building as Bovis is arguing with Spotless about who is responsible for filling it in.
I think all these refurb jobs were done in such a hurry that there are lots of problems.
We have had lots of cupboard doors and drawers that don't shut properly. The carpet is unravelling in one room and lots of the sinks are rusting.
Tigger I hope your problem is fixed now.

So far so good. There have been no more gas smells coming from the lab or prep room (except from the usual suspects ie students )