So I have been meaning to post about this little DIY project for a bit but things have been crazy busy so I am way behind....... I will give some background on this update. When we moved in this house over 10 years ago I saw there was a natural gas meter base on the side of the house and realized they had a natural gas line ran over 400 foot from the house down to the road. I called Columbia Gas and they said I wanted hooked up to it. Well after a few weeks of run around they said the main gas line was over 300 yards away from my house and they would need to do a main extension at a cost of $10,000 that would be billed to me...... I impolitely told them NO in no uncertain terms and proceeded to have the propane tank filled up. When I got the $600 dollar bill for that I unhooked the tank and started cutting wood which was the only source of heat we had for the last decade. Fast forward to this spring and I started getting notification after notification from Columbia Gas that they wanted to hook me up. I called the number at which point they proceeded to tell me sorry our maps show you are nowhere near the main line. I finally pestered them enough that they agreed to send a technician out to my house to asses it with me. When the tech got there he proceeded to tell me that the office maps must be way off and the gas line came halfway down my property and that there was already a tap in place for the house. He assesed the current line that was down to the road and said looks good we will hook you up! 15 minutes later he shows back up and proceeds to tell me they can't use the old line since they never inspected it before it was covered up and now I need to run a new line down over the hill. I argued until I was blue in the face stating that the gas line was sleeved and it had the required tracer wires etc but it was a no go I was told I needed a new line and since my house sits over 400' off the road they weren't running it. They stuck a flag in the ground and said get the line to here and we will take care of the rest. After mulling it over I decided I was going to do it myself and get it done. I grabbed my friends skidsteer and had another buddy with a mini excavator come over to the house and got after it. I decided to cut about 100' off the line by running it straight over the steepest part of the hill that you can barely stand on. Man the bottom part of the ditch dug great but about halfway up the hill got into solid sandstone and the 12" wide ditch ended up being over 3 foot wide by the time I go to the depth it needed to be at. It also hit me that there was no way I could back fill with this stuff as it was solid stinking rock.......... Bottom part of the ditch near the road that dug well. This section was right before the creek that I had to dig through. Starting to get really technical and right before the steep part. Man I thought It was going to crush the corner of the excavator on that tree when the soil broke loose . The cab corner was touching the tree but it all turned out OK with some pucker factor.... I really didn't want and couldn't go the right of the tree as my water line is over there somewhere and I didn't want to find it!! Starting to get steep but nowhere close to the steepest it got!
At this point it started getting dark on us and the rest of the digging was at night with the lights on. When we got to the steepest part of the hill there was some thought of getting the truck up top to hook onto the excavator with a winch. It got hairy there for a bit and I didn't get pictures of that mess The bucket or the blade were the only things that kept it on the hill and it was rocking quite a few times Mainly had to push your way up with the bucket while running the tracks. It was interesting to say the least. Once we got the ditch dug that night we came back the next day and pulled all the sandstone down off the hill with the excaavator and a grading bucket. We used the sandstone to give build a ramp at the bottom of the hill for the skidsteer. I then spent about 8 hours cleaning out the ditch by hand and smoothing the bottom out for the gas line. In the end I still was afraid to bury the gas line by itself due to all the sandstone under the river dirt I put down for a base. I ended up getting 2.5" grey schedule 40 conduit and sleeved the 1 1/4" gas line from the house to the road (a little over 300'). If I ever have a problem with the gas line I can now pull the old line out and fish a new line through without digging up that hill again!! That skid steer is a beast but let me tell you what the pucker factor on that hill was off the charts for me!!!! you felt like you were in an antigravity chair when going upbut it was secure and you could even turn it around on the steepest part of the hill. Let me tell you what though you didn't want to get twitchy on the sticks or you were in for a ride. This is hands down the steepest hill I have ever had to work on and the pictures don't do it justice!
A few more pics. My wife wouldn't watch this at all...... After I had everything in place I pressure tested all the lines and the new lines outside all held pressure however when I pressure tested the house lines almost every stinking joint in the basement leaked (thank God I never used it). I got to looking at the pipe and they had used the incorrect pipe dope so I ended up ripping out the over 70' of gas line in the house, cleaned every joint and reinstalled it. I then changed out the orifices on the furnace, put the correct springs in the gas valve and waited to 3 months for Columbia to put the line in under the road to hook me up. Columbia came and pressure tested everything and it was all good! For the first time in over a decade I have had back up heat. I liked the gas so much I replaced the range with a gas one and will be replacing the water heater here shortly. The furnace runs!!! After some horse trading on Craigslist I managed to trade my electric range for this gas range with 5 burners and a double oven and only had to pony up an extra $100 on top of my range so I have about $350 in it which I don't think is bad.
You sir, deserve a beer or 5. Nice upgrade on the stove too. When we bought our house in 08, the first thing we did was upgraded appliances. A GE gas SS cafe double stove was one the things that we had to have. I had to run a new gas line as the electric one that previously lived there had no gas line run to area. Best upgrade ever. I can't see how people live with electric ranges and stoves.
I love the gas range! It is so much better than the glass electric flat top range that we had. The gas heats up so much quicker, is easier to control and instantaneous when you turn the heat down. It also works so much better with out cast iron cookware which we use all the time. Getting that new line in was a huge undertaking and a couple of times I was wondering if it was worth it but in the end I'm glad I did it. I ended up putting in a 1.25" id line and got 2 pounds of pressure supplied to the house instead of 7" water column so I should be good to run anything and everything I could ever want. Now I kind of want to watch for a good deal on a propane whole house generator ! Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
Nice work there Certified! What an ordeal dealing with Columbia, but glad you got it done. It will be so much less $$ using gas versus propane. Im curious why are you keeping your propane tank? I bet they sell pretty well used.
I didn't keep the propane tank. In fact I never used a single drop out of it after I had it filled the first time. I moved the tank shortly after moving in to build a shed and ripped the line out of the ground and never put it back. Columbia was terrible to work with. They gave me the run around for two months even after I had my part done. I finally had a field supervisor who showed up to the house and after explaining to him what was going on he said don't worry about calling the office I will handle it and a week later I was hooked up. Turned out the guy lives right up the road from me so we took him some Christmas goodies and gave him a big thank you! Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
