Smell Gas at Home? Exactly What To Do (And What Never To Touch)

Natural gas and LPG are both odourless. Suppliers add mercaptan — the rotten-egg or sulphur smell — precisely so a leak announces itself. If you can smell gas inside or around your Shellharbour, Warilla or Albion Park home, treat it as an emergency, not a curiosity.

Do these five things first

• Open doors and windows to ventilate — cross-flow is best
• Turn the gas off at the meter (natural gas) or at the bottle valve (LPG)
• Do not touch light switches, powerpoints, appliances or garage door remotes
• No flames, no smoking, no lighters, no matches
• Get everyone outside and call a licensed gas fitter from outside the house

Why you shouldn't flick a switch

Any switch, plug or motor can produce a tiny arc. In an atmosphere with gas above its lower explosive limit, that arc is an ignition source. The same goes for a mobile phone — make the call once you're outdoors and clear of the building.

Where gas leaks actually come from

• Perished flexible connectors behind cooktops and ovens — the single most common find
• Loose compression fittings after an appliance has been moved for a renovation
• Corroded copper where a line runs through a wall cavity or under a slab in coastal air
• Regulator or hose failure on LPG bottles, especially on outdoor kitchens and BBQ points
• Unsealed capped points left behind when an old heater or stove was removed

How a licensed gas fitter finds it

We isolate the installation at the meter and run a pressure drop test on the gas line — that confirms whether you actually have a leak and roughly how big it is. From there we section the run with test points, use an electronic gas detector and leak-detection solution at joints, and work back to the exact fitting. Once repaired, we retest the whole installation and check every appliance for correct operation and combustion.

Coastal Illawarra homes have their own risk profile

Salt-laden air from Shellharbour, Shell Cove, Warilla and Kiama accelerates corrosion on exposed copper, regulators and bayonet points. Homes within a few streets of the beach see gas fittings age faster than inland ones, which is why we recommend a gas safety check every couple of years rather than waiting for a smell.

Carbon monoxide is the silent version

A leak you can smell is the obvious hazard. A poorly-flued or spilling gas heater produces carbon monoxide, which you cannot smell at all. Headaches, nausea or drowsiness that improve when you leave the house are warning signs — shut the appliance down and have it tested before it's used again.

After the repair: your compliance certificate

Any gas work in NSW must be carried out by a licensed gas fitter, and you're entitled to a Gas Compliance Certificate for notifiable work. Keep it — insurers and conveyancers ask for it, and it's your proof the installation was tested and left safe.