Hair-Raising House Razing
Great moments in building history: A narrow escape from an explosion
My wife and I were living in a converted garage on a large lot that, along with two abandoned cars, a chicken coop and dead cottonwoods, had been an eyesore for 45 years. We had looked for over a year with eyes bigger than our checkbook before discovering this lot in an old neighborhood, the site of our future dream home.
We built a large house that wrapped around the miserable garage we lived in. One wall of the garage nestled against the gutter of the new house, and another wall was 15 in. away. Our plan was to call in friends, arm them with hammers and other wrecking paraphernalia, eviscerate the garage until the roof came down and load the mess in two dumpsters the same day. It was supposed to be just like in olden times, when friends and neighbors gathered in a tradition of pitching in to raise a barn.
Work proceeded crisply with 20 adults plus kids and pets underfoot. Roy was there with his video camera, ad-libbing and taping, hoping to catch something he could send to America’s Funniest Home Videos. Gene, a 50-year-old carpenter, was there, working hard as usual and sipping what I thought was ice water furnished to him by mischievous 80-year-old Lou, the unofficial mayor of the neighborhood. George the stockbroker was there, taking out his aggressions on a windowsill with alien hammer and prybar, with no apparent harm to the sill.
As the inner walls began to disappear, I commissioned Buck to save some cabinets, Willie to salvage an aluminum carport and Rick to set up block and tackle to yank down the roof when the time came. With a hopeful eye on “tradition,” we expected to find something valuable in the walls but not the extensive collection of electrocuted rats and exotic mushrooms that only 45 years of renters and neglect can create.
As soon as the garage began to quiver from the sledgehammer blows, I cleared the spectators away, and the rest of us manned the pull-down ropes. We tugged and cheered as the garage came down away from the new house just as planned. Our cheers died in our throats as the mother of all gas leaks screamed from somewhere under the rubble. From here on I have only sketchy recollection…bits and pieces swimming in a migraine.
I remember seeing people running like hell. I remember Roy backpedaling with video camera running, but with no more witty narration and a voice choked with fear. I remember racing to turn off the power to the new house while enduring a splitting headache tastefully underscored with nausea as I waited for the inevitable. I dug—no—I clawed through the rubble, trying somehow to plug the leak. I recall Gene at my side, raising his hammer to smash away the covering rubble and me intercepting his swing. I dashed to my toolbox, dumped its carefully compartmentalized components, grabbed a wrench and shut off the gas. Incredibly, the meter had broken
off on the house side of the shutoff valve.
People began drifting back, quietly. The conversation gathered steam, we broke out the beer, and before long a party had begun in the new house. I quietly reflected on my utter stupidity and undeserved luck. With 15 years of home-building and remodeling experience, I knew the gas line and the meter should have been capped or protected. But my chagrin was somewhat offset by knowing that I had reacted quickly, if not coolly.
In the midst of the chaos, someone had the presence to dial 911 and the gas company. The gas company responded within 20 minutes and capped the line. I coolly explained to the gas man how I had solved the problem and conversationally asked how often these gas leaks resulted in disaster. Without looking up from his work, the man explained there was little danger of explosion out in the open unless some fool came near the jet and acted as a ground to the static electricity from the gas jet. Chastened, I quietly slipped back to the party, knowing I had explored dimensions of stupidity where few men dare to go.
—Joseph von Arx, Sacramento, Calif.
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