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House explodes in Toronto. Footage captured on dash cam.

Eug

Eug

Lifer
One dead after explosion levels house in Scarborough <-- Video

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drone-pic.jpg
 
I can see Scarborough from my office window. I wonder if I could have seen the explosion. Looks massive.

KT
 
We had this happen in our area 2 years ago. The cause was the gas company doing maintenance on the gas lines... blew up a guy in his house.

My friend lived about 5 blocks away and felt the ground shake when it happened.
 
My speculation: the gas leak was in the basement. The ground kept it mostly contained, forcing the explosion mostly upward. That's why the neighboring houses are still standing.
 
For a while a neighbour absolutely refused to put any natural gas appliances in his house, precisely because of this sort of thing. I guess he finally got sick of paying through the nose for electricity, and added a gas furnace, and most recently got rid of his electric water heater and put in a gas tankless water heater.

I'm just the opposite. We have multiple gas fireplaces, two gas furnaces, two gas stoves, and a gas powered 200000 tankless water heater.

BTW, when we were doing my basement reno, my contractor's wife mentioned she smelled gas. I never smelled it and she said it was just for a split second. Then she smelled it again another day, yet I never smelled it ever. I got the gas guys in, and they couldn't find it for a while, but finally found it it was on the outside of the house. There was a small hole in the foundation that had been exposed when the drywall came down for the reno, and very occasionally there would be a waft of gas getting into the house, and then it would suddenly disappear. It turns out the outside piping (which was decades old) before the meter had a very small leak and likely had been for years sending very small amounts of gas into the outside air.

And then when I got my new furnace in, I rarely smelled a split second of gas when the furnace came on, and then it would disappear. In this case the installer had forgotten to cap off one of the exhaust pipe joints. Nice.
 
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Oh my, those silly Canadians found how to make gunpowder !! KT, its time for you to GTF outta there !! Its not safe anymore.
 
DrPizza said:
My speculation: the gas leak was in the basement. The ground kept it mostly contained, forcing the explosion mostly upward. That's why the neighboring houses are still standing.
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ya, odd that ONLY that house was completely demolished and surrounding houses are very well intact.
 
Yeah, in the video it's hard to tell for sure, but it looks like the explosion is mainly just upwards.

But as mentioned, the reports state it's probably not a gas leak, but related to some chemical stored in the basement. There was a severed gas line, but given the amount of damage, I'd be shocked if there wasn't a severed gas line, caused by the explosion.

Interesting that there is no fire though.
 
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Drako said:
So possibly a meth lab? :hmm:
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They said in TV that it could be propane or butane. Those are stored as liquids.

Fire officials said there was very little fire and most of the energy was expelled in the blast. All the fuel appears to have been consumed, which is why they can't determine what it was at this point.
 
This happens here a lot in some of the rougher areas of town.

The usual cause is due to replacement of the gas meter with a bicycle inner tube.

After the last house blew up, the gas company did "safety checks" on all the neighboring houses and found 27 DIY modifications.
 
Mark R said:
This happens here a lot in some of the rougher areas of town.

The usual cause is due to replacement of the gas meter with a bicycle inner tube.

After the last house blew up, the gas company did "safety checks" on all the neighboring houses and found 27 DIY modifications.
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Holy frack! WTF?!? I did not know this was a thing. That's pretty ghetto.

Where is that?

I did see pix like this from China though.

Nat_Gas_Storage_Facility.jpg
 
Mark R said:
This happens here a lot in some of the rougher areas of town.

The usual cause is due to replacement of the gas meter with a bicycle inner tube.

After the last house blew up, the gas company did "safety checks" on all the neighboring houses and found 27 DIY modifications.
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lol what? are they bypassing the meter with the tube? how is it a replacement
 
It's a method of bypassing the meter.

Common methods of bypassing include the use of rubber hose, the use of a genuine flexible gas cable and temporarily installing a stolen meter bought off ebay.

Reverse installation of meters, to lower a reading is also a common method.
 
Wow. Where there is a will, there is a way (to blow yourself up).

BTW, my main gas line underground before the meter had to be replaced. They had to upgrade my meter (see above post for all those gas appliances) and also they were doing maintenance anyway, and noted the main line wasn't in the greatest shape - all corroded. I think it was iron but I'm not sure. They replaced it with plastic.

I wonder how long these pipes last underground.

Inside my house I have black iron pipe, but for the reno the guy put in some flexible CSST. That kinda bothered me (even though there's supposedly less likelihood of gas eaks because of fewer joints), in areas where cupboards were going up I asked them to put a hard barrier to protect it from nail/screw punctures.
 
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Saw that. Everyone has a dashcam now, which is awesome. And the better video I saw looked HD with GPS.

Eug said:
For a while a neighbour absolutely refused to put any natural gas appliances in his house, precisely because of this sort of thing. I guess he finally got sick of paying through the nose for electricity, and added a gas furnace, and most recently got rid of his electric water heater and put in a gas tankless water heater.
Click to expand...

My tolerance goes up to home heating. I'm not into cooking with any finesse, so the kaboom and suffocation risk isn't worth it over electric. Sort of meh on water heater, but I'd lean towards electric since I can manage my usage better.
 
Imp said:
My tolerance goes up to home heating. I'm not into cooking with any finesse, so the kaboom and suffocation risk isn't worth it over electric.
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Induction is electric but has some of the benefits of gas, and some advantages over gas.

50A circuit is recommended though for induction (although 40A is OK), and the stoves/stove tops are pricey. You also need specific types of pots and pans.

Sort of meh on water heater, but I'd lean towards electric since I can manage my usage better.
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In Canada, electric water heating is generally quite expensive unless you live in Quebec.
 
Eug said:
Induction is electric but has some of the benefits of gas, and some advantages over gas.

50A circuit is recommended though for induction (although 40A is OK), and the stoves/stove tops are pricey. You also need specific types of pots and pans.

In Canada, electric water heating is generally quite expensive unless you live in Quebec.
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We use that old style electric crap. Terrible piece of shit that doesn't make full contact with the bottom of pans -- inner coils bright red, outside black sometimes. Induction looks awesome, but ya, cheapest induction tops I found a while ago were over a grand.

Gas water heater guy talked his way in a few years ago... We liked his sales pitch but didn't want to deal with the hassle. Oh, and a contractor ruptured our gas line in the yard a few months back. That was fun. Not.
 
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