Natural Gas-how long would it last?

[HighStrung]

Having natural gas for home and water heating it occured to me that I have no idea how long the supply would last in a SHTF event. Say power goes out (across the state or even the nation) how long would the pressure in the system still provide gas to end users? I'm not educated in how or what actually happens to provide natural gas to end users, so any input would be appriciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[shibumiseeker]

It depends on the nature of the emergency, but in general several days assuming the gas pipeline infrastructure itself wasn't disrupted. There's a lot of residual pressure in the lines and the compressor stations all have backup power. The gas system is pretty resistant to simple power disruption which is one thing that makes it a good choice for residential backup power.

Take out a few sections of the high pressure supply lines though and gas will stop flowing to affected areas within hours.

 

[eldirector]

^ What he said.

I think the NG pumping stations have generators that actually run on NG, so as long as the main supply is up, the local utility is up.

I am on natural gas as well, and am looking at a dual NG/propane genset.

 

[DanO]

Yes, electric power outage will not effect NG. Back around 97 when we had that big ice storm, my power was out for 3 days and the water was turned off in my subdivision. But I had a ventless gas heater in my garage and heated the house on it at night. Worked great. I have one in my garage under the bedroom now too.

 

[FWShooter]

Yes, electric power outage will not effect NG. Back around 97 when we had that big ice storm, my power was out for 3 days and the water was turned off in my subdivision. But I had a ventless gas heater in my garage and heated the house on it at night. Worked great. I have one in my garage under the bedroom now too.

Happened to me a couple years ago when the other ice storm hit the north.

4 days no power and I was happy because my stovetop was still fully functional the whole time.

 

[dsol]

I spliced in an outlet on my furnace blower and a switch to isolate it from the rest of the house. During the ice storm a couple of years ago, I ran an extension cord down to it from my generator and we were toasty warm through the 8 day power outage. I just wish I had a gas water heater... cold showers suck.

 

[LtScott14]

+1 on the auxillary heat from the ventless htr. I installed a small fireplace in my ranch home and it will keep the house easily 68-70 degrees on a moderate day. Subzero temps it will drop some but still livable. We also have a genny(small) for basic lights, tv and computer use. Can plug in my stove/oven and bake a cake to warm the kitchen area. Stove top works without electric so we can cook with frying pan or soup kettles.
Have some battery lanterns also. Since we have a curious cat, I hesitate to light candles during an outage.

Note: on ventless use we crack open the front door to replace air used for combustion. We also have 3 CO Mon. detectors that work on batterys or electric. 1 measures PPM of air.

 

[Leadeye]

I figure 1k gallons of Lp will keep me going for a while.