Don’t always rely on your sense of smell to detect a natural gas leak

Sometimes physical and/or chemical processes can cause a loss of odorant in natural gas, making it undetectable by smell. Odor fade can be caused by adsorption, oxidation or any combination thereof.

Odor fade is more likely to occur in the following situations:

• In new, steel pipe that has been recently manufactured or hasn’t been used for odorized natural gas before
• In natural gas piping systems using higher gas pressure, and when natural gas flow is limited or intermittent
• In the presence of rust, mill scale, moisture, air, cutting oil, pipe thread compound, liquids, condensates and other substances

Because of the possibility of odor fade, it's important to not rely only on your sense of smell to be alerted to a natural gas leak.