The pipes are all the same age and in the same environment.  Replace the entire gas main under the house and check any risers to each appliance for corrosion.   When your finished, pressure test the entire system.

We aren't going to bother trying to repair them for that exact reason. The whole pipe system is old and crumbling, so there is no point in trying to piece it back together. Unfortunately, the majority of the run is in an inaccessible space within the crawl, so to avoid future problems as well as remedy installation problems, we are going too abandon the current pipe system and re-run new black iron pipe along the outside of the house to the two fixtures that will need a gas supply (furnace and heater upstairs). The one fixture that can't be reached by doing this (the water heater) is going to be replaced with an electric version and the gas line abandoned.

The more systems I can remove from that darn crawl space, the better. Nearly half the house is unreachable due to either lack of space or obstructions preventing you from getting to it (such as the HVAC trunk line blocking access to half the house).

Edit:

I also will not be the one installing this. I don't mess with gas and would 100% hire a licensed plumber to do the work. Columbia Gas already confirmed that I could run the line along the outside of the house above ground as long as the pipe is iron and painted for identification.

31 minutes ago, SinDoc said:

The more systems I can remove from that darn crawl space, the better.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Finished getting ready for the Tannehill conference in Alabama and Quad-state in Ohio! Hope to see some of y’all there. 

Ill take 2 hammers, 3 tongs, a drift and chisel please and thank you 

 That’s quite the line up! I hope you do well with your sales! 
 
I won’t get to go to either of those conferences this year but I’d really like to go to quad state sometime, 

 I am pretty excited though to get to go to the central states hammer in at tired iron in gentry Arkansas this weekend! 

BsnNFrnt;  just think of me as being "Santa's evil twin Skippy". 

Out here when the gas pipes corrode you often find extras like there is no foundation they just laid adobe on the ground when they built an addition.  My house was built by a builder for himself and so we don't have that issue. Of course when we moved in it we didn't have any gas either.  My wife likes gas stoves and so we bought one set up for propane and I installed a gas line to the exterior of the house where we have a tank. I did the plumbing and my wife was surprised when they tested it and told her I had done an excellent job!  I also got to convert the replacement stove to propane when she decided to go to a new stove and not the 60+ year old stove she first bought.  No Natural Gas out here in rural NM.

It's interesting but the soil out here is quite corrosive. Steel in the open air lasts over a century; but bury it and it will get eaten away in a decade or two.

I would love to go to Tannehill one day. It's only 2 hours from me. Maybe something I can plan for next year.

I could believe it Thomas. I know having the pipe outside and exposed to the elements means it will likely degrade faster, but it will be out in the open and can be seen and maintained unlike the existing pipe in a crawl space that can be easily gotten to. Every few years I could just throw another fresh coat of paint on the pipe and it should last quite a long time.

If it stops sprinkling I'm going to grind the shank on a fuller to fit my anvil's hardy hole and maybe rework the wedges that hold my anvil to the stump. 

Pnut

2 hours ago, littleblacksmith said:

Finished getting ready for the Tannehill conference in Alabama and Quad-state in Ohio! Hope to see some of y’all there. 

Do you do mail order sales? 

Pnut

Got a quote to do repairs on the gas system and it ain't pretty. Cheapest option is to relocate the water heater to the other side of the house for ease of access to the gas system then run new water lines over to it using PEX pipe. That will run me nearly 13k and then it goes up from there.

Are houses subject to lemon laws? 

7 hours ago, SinDoc said:

On the plus side of all that, if that annoyance of a Raccoon was still under there, he probably isnt alive anymore.

You should know in about three days. De-comp is easily detected with just a sniff, fortunately it doesn't last very long.

SinDoc,  I don't know if it's allowed in your part of the world but why not run your gas in copper pipe? 

You can put it in yourself and pressure test it and just pay a certified gas Fitter to do the final connection. 

Do you have any rounding hammers in the 4 pound range?   Wait,  what am I doing?  I just bought a new tool that's going to follow me home this weekend!  So anyway,  do you?

9 hours ago, JHCC said:

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

one of my favorite quotes well used sir

wow that set of pictures I just drooling want to get a basket and start shopping. 

Dax, running natural gas or propane through a copper pipe is a BAD thing.  You can get what is called "hydrogen embrittlement" where hydrogen atoms/ions incorporate themselves into the crystal structure of the copper which causes it to become more brittle and less malleable/flexible.  This causes the copper tubing to break much more easily and a broken gas line is a VERY BAD thing.  This is what blows up houses and kills people.  There is a very good reason why code requires gas lines to be black iron and to be pressure tested.

If you are looking at a new (to you) house and see copper tubing used for natural gas, run, not walk, away until the seller replaces it.

This is as bad or worse than some of the severe safety problems with casting molten metal which have been graphically described here.

DON 'T DO IT!!!

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Basket?   Large electromagnet on a crane and a turbo charged dumptruck!

16 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Basket?   Large electromagnet on a crane and a turbo charged dumptruck!

Excellent idear.....

SinDoc, there is iron piping that has a plastic coating bonded to it for burial.

Cutting and threading pipe is not that bad. For up to 2" pipe you measure from flange to flange on the fittings and add 1" to get the length needed. Rent a power threader, and it will go quickly. I prefer the pipe dope over tape, as it is more forgiving if you have to adjust an angle of a fitting.  Thread the fitting on one turn, then paint it on the threads. This way you don't get any inside the pipe.

18 hours ago, SinDoc said:

Got a quote to do repairs on the gas system and it ain't pretty. Cheapest option is to relocate the water heater to the other side of the house for ease of access to the gas system then run new water lines over to it using PEX pipe. That will run me nearly 13k and then it goes up from there.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but do it yourself. None of that stuff is rocket science. Nothing on the residential side of electric or plumbing is really all that hard, it just takes a little research and some common sense. With a little time I'm sure you could do it yourself for 10-20% of that price. I'm currently building a suite for my mother in law about 100' from my house. I'll probably have less then $3K TOTAL into running all the utilities (gas, water, electric) to the building plus all work inside for electric, plumbing and gas.

I think the coated gas line Big Gun Doc might be referring to is CSST? If so its a stainless steel flexible gas line with a plastic/rubber coating. It's similar to flex conduit but for gas. The piping is slightly cheaper then ridged right now but the fittings are kind of pricey.

Although, after saying all of that, you might not be allowed to do it yourself if you're in the city and the local building department requires a "licensed contractor" do the work. 

Could I run it myself? Probably. I would prefer the peace of mind knowing a licensed contractor that knew what they were doing did it though when it comes to a pressurized gas system. The main hurdle is my water heater, as if I try to re-gas it where it currently is, I will have to demo a wall and the floor in the bathroom I quite literally "just" finished remodeling to access the crawl space to run the pipe to it. I believe my best bet is to relocate the water heater next to the furnace for ease of re-gassing and refeed the water lines to it via PEX. I would just reroute the water lines at its current location to go into the ceiling and then across the room to hook it back up, both the incoming water feed and the outgoing hot/cold. Very minimal demo work, possible just a 4x4 hole or two in drywall and no crawl space work would need to be done.

CSST pipe is what I believe he is referring to as well Fow. CSST is nice for short stents, but for this application, with it being run on the outside of the house and above ground, I believe local code states that it would have to be black iron for impact resistance. CSST is also more expensive I believe per foot than black iron.

Your free to do as you wish, I was just saying it’s not that hard. If the gas company shut it off they will have to test/inspect before they turn it back on regardless, so there’s really no difference in peace of mind……

23 hours ago, pnut said:

Do you do mail order sales? 

Yes sir I do, I mail most of the tools I sell

17 hours ago, Chad J. said:

Do you have any rounding hammers in the 4 pound range? 

yes sir I have 3.5lb hammers and 4.5lb hammers. Message me if you’re interested, or better you can text or call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx. 

I mounted the first of my dragon headed coat hooks last night.  I Hope to do the rest if I can buy more screws the right length at lunch.   Oak that's been drying for decades in the NM clime works a lot like metal when it comes to drilling and putting in screws!

Dragon head hooks? I want to see! Also I can fully believe that about the log being hard nearly like metal. My house's "spine" is a log that is roughly 2' wide. It is so hard that we were unable to drive nails or even put screws into it without using a heavy duty drill bit first.