• enkers@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    10 months ago

    While it looks scary as fuck, wouldn’t it not actually explode unless the gas pipe melted through? There’s no oxygen in the fuel, so it can’t combust. I guess as the gas heats up, it’s also possible the for the tank or lines to spring a leak.

    Either way, I’d be nopeing out and calling emergency services.

      • enkers@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        10 months ago

        I think you’re right. I was curious, so I looked it up.

        The melting point of copper is 1,085°C, and judging from this chart, its definitely getting close:

        metal color temp chart

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
          0·
          10 months ago

          You ever see gas hookups in the US?

          We use black pipe for most of the run. Cast Iron. The actual hookup itself is a flexible pipe…SS or Aluminum I think. Been a long time since I had gas. Sometimes they have like a rubbery-epoxy-ish coating but I assume that’s now quite gone and stinky.

          • enkers@sh.itjust.works
            0·
            10 months ago

            Oh, huh. That’s interesting. I’m from the great white north, and our gas hookups are copper from what I’ve seen. If this is indeed iron, then the melting point would be higher: ~ 1,540°C.

            Interestingly that colour temperature chart is supposedly fairly consistent across different metals.

            • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
              0·
              10 months ago

              Tbh I don’t know why we don’t use copper. I imagine because it’s more difficult to fuck up threaded and doped connections as opposed to soldered ones.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      10 months ago

      Leave immediately and call 911 for an impending gas explosion. Tell them exactly what you saw, it will need to be disconnected somewhere very far away from the house. Aside from this being an obvious fake if you see a glowing pipe it’s the result of a deadly serious electrical fault that has bypassed at least 2 safety mechanisms that would otherwise prevent this catastrophic failure and at that point you really don’t even want to be touching the walls of the structure involved.

    • normalexit@lemmy.world
      0·
      10 months ago

      Either turn off the gas if you can safely do it, or call your gas company so they can shut off the supply to your house.

    • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today
      0·
      10 months ago

      Run. That’s what I would do. Then probably call the fire department, the gas company, or an exorcist. Possibly all 3.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
    0·
    10 months ago

    So there’s an air leak upstream allowing a fire inside the gas line. And the house didn’t go up in flames I assume. Probably this situation would not end in a big explosion but rather just a house fire. Still pretty scary.

    • fouloleron@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      10 months ago

      They look like a gas furnace and a hot water tank. My first thought was "Why are they connected? ", because I thought the tank had its own heating element. My second thought was “Aren’t those water lines? How does a water line become incandescent?”

        • bizarroland@fedia.io
          0·
          10 months ago

          Some part of me believes that water cannot get so hot that it would cause metal to Glow.

          I would be happy to be proven wrong.

          I mean, unless you’re saying that the pipe is heating the water inside of it? Which at that temperature that water would be expanding to over a thousand times its size and would probably blow that line to smithereens.

          • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
            0·
            10 months ago

            Steam has no limit to how hot it can get. Until it eventually transitions into plasma of course. By then the oxygen and hydrogen would have separated, I imagine. Then it’s no longer water.

            Superheated steam was a problem in some steam locomotives, as running the water level too low would allow the boiler to reach temperatures that would compromise the integrity of the metal.

            Only liquid water has the boiling point as a “limit”.

      • Drathro@dormi.zoneEnglish
        0·
        10 months ago

        Both glowing portions are natural gas pipes. Perhaps it’s somehow ignited inside the pipes and is super heating them but also somehow NOT travelling outside the two glowing sections and burning the house down???

        • fouloleron@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          10 months ago

          I don’t know, but I’d like to think I would shut everything off and run away until it demonstrably hadn’t exploded rather than take a picture!

      • r00ty@kbin.life
        0·
        10 months ago

        The only way that immediately springs to mind is so unlikely to happen. It requires multiple faults/mistakes.

        1: The chassis of one of the two units became live (connected to “hot” for you Americans) but was also not grounded in any way.
        2: The chassis of the other WAS grounded and created a circuit for the current to flow.
        3: There was no RCD (GFCD or whatever you guys call it) on the circuit.

        In this way, that pipe would be the only thing connecting the two devices, and the resistance is causing a huge amount of heat (just like an incandescent bulb, or a heating element does by design).

        Probably other possibilities, but it’s just the first thing I could think of that could potentially produce this result. But, that’s a lot of safety features to have either failed or just simply not been in place for this to be possible. So, frankly I hope I’m totally wrong.

        • Sparky@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          0·
          10 months ago

          Even if that happened, wouldn’t the pipe handle a lot more current than normal house wires, or even the main ones connecting the building to the grid. I assume the pipe would be thick enough that the wires in your walls would be glowing long before the pipe itself was.

          • r00ty@kbin.life
            0·
            10 months ago

            I would have thought so, but I think it depends on how thin the skin of the pipe is. I would also have expected a breaker to trip under that much load. But, based on that happening, I’d not be surprised if there are bypasses and/or broken breakers.

            When we moved into the house we’re in now, the RCD (GFCI) didn’t work at all. I pressed test, nothing. Had the electrician over to change it. He tested the actual actuation using earth leakage. Nothing. So, faults can happen too.

            I want to be wrong, though. Because that’s a pretty bad state to get into, I think.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
    0·
    10 months ago

    “Home is equipped with a 50 Gallon gas water heater upgraded with RGB lines for an extra 10 FPS.”