Posted on 10/07/2004 6:17:38 AM PDT by Michael Goldsberry
SALT LAKE CITY - If you can't stand the heat, don't pour gasoline down the toilet. An apartment tenant made that $75,000 mistake Tuesday.
The man came home for lunch and found gas leaking from the tank of his car. He caught the gas, and decided to dispose of it by dumping it down the toilet.
But the pilot light of a water heater ignited the fumes, causing a small explosion. The blast destroyed the porcelain toilet, and the intense heat from the flames melted the remaining pieces.
The man and three other people were able to get out of the home before the fire spread.
Officials said gasoline and kerosene should never be poured into the drain or toilet or sewer system.
I live in SLC and this was not reported in the paper. Oh, and gasoline doesn't burn hot enough to melt porcelain. Porcelain is made at temperatures of 2300-2400 degrees F. Gasoline in the combustion chamber in the engine of your car can reach those temperatures but only after it has been compressed to 9 to 11 times atmospheric pressure.
Yikes, what a horrible thing to happen. Were you scared of snakes ever after? (I sure would be)
Yikes, what a horrible thing to happen. Were you scared of snakes ever after? (I sure would be)
"I live in SLC and this was not reported in the paper. Oh, and gasoline doesn't burn hot enough to melt porcelain."
You're right. It doesn't. But news stories are often wrong in details. It certainly would have melted the seat and any other plastic bits.
Finally, just because your local paper did not print the story, that does not mean this explosion did not happen.
Doubly scared, evidently.
Reminds me of a story once told by an exploration driller for Amoco Oil back in the 1970s. It seems they thought there might be oil in Iowa so a very deep well was drilled. No oil was found but a hole more than 12,000 feet deep was created. Rather than waste the hole by filling it in, an area farmer had an outhouse built over the hole...
Besides, the story WAS printed in the Salt Lake Tribune. You can view it here:
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2423215
What a dumbass!
Of course. How could I have thought otherwise?
I'm sorry, but I don't understand the written word. Would you tell me again in sign language?
Really? During my life, I've lived in 4 different apartments, and in each one, I have had my own hot water heater, although none of them gas powered--although I've never had gas heat.
over here!
Oh...crap.
Filling it in, day by day.
The pilot light of a water heater igniting gas poured into a toilet? Only if -
(1)they were literally next to each other
or
(2) the water heater was not up to code and sitting directly on the floor.
The funniest story of this sort that I ever read was about 4 yrs ago--in NE Ohio, a person couldn't start his car on a cold morning because of gas freeze-up in the line. So he siphoned out some gas into a cooking pot and heated it up on his stove. Kaboom! No one dead, thankfully, but a lifetime of chuckles.
Perfectly understandable. One never knows when one will be ploughing the back forty and suddenly have to go.
Besides the sight of the farmer squatting in the field would, no doubt, result in the fieldmice and rabbit population moving to the cities. ;)
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