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If you think gas leaks are rare, this conversation might change how you walk into your next showing. We’re Jim and Laura, and we’re sharing what we see week after week during home inspections: loose fittings, tiny leaks you’d never notice, and the occasional situation where you can smell gas immediately. We talk through the realities of natural gas and propane in typical homes, why leaks happen so often, and what the findings usually mean for cost and repair.
We also explain the tools and methods behind gas leak detection. Soap-bubble checks can work, but they can miss small leaks or the exact location of the problem. A combustible gas detector lets us trace lines and fittings by “sniffing” the air, which is why an inspection can uncover issues even when someone else has already looked. Then we give you a simple severity framework: leaks only detectable right at the joint, leaks you can smell in a mechanical room, and the big red flag scenario where you smell gas at the front door and should avoid switches and sparks.
From there we connect the dots to another “gas” problem that gets misunderstood: radon. Radon testing and radon mitigation systems are a separate safety topic, and we’ve seen active systems fail due to bad installs, fan problems, or sump pit configuration issues that keep the system from pulling properly. If you want practical home safety guidance that helps you stay calm and make smart calls during an inspection, you’ll get it here. Subscribe, share this with a homebuyer you know, and leave a review with your biggest question about gas leaks or radon.
Adventures in Home Buying, the ultimate podcast for anyone navigating the exciting, sometimes daunting world of purchasing a home! Whether you're a first-time buyer, a seasoned investor, or dreaming of your forever home, our engaging stories and expert insights will guide you through every step of the homebuying journey. From decoding mortgages and mastering bidding wars to uncovering hidden costs and spotting sustainable home features, we deliver practical tips and real-world advice to empower you with confidence.
Are you a home inspector or service company? We’re always looking for passionate experts to join us as guests! Share your insights, showcase your services, and connect with our growing audience of homebuyers. Contact us at (1) Facebook to be featured on Adventures in Home Buying.
Subscribe now and embark on your homebuying adventure with us—because every home has a story, and we’re here to help you write yours!
A lot of houses, at least a lot of houses here in Ohio, they have uh gas for heating, water heaters.
SPEAKER_01
Things like that. Gas stoves.
SPEAKER_02
Gas stoves. Propane or natural gas. Typically propane's more out in the country, and then natural gas is more in the city where you got the all the gas lines going. But we will on some of our inspections do uh gas leak detection. Yes. Where we take a combustible gas detector and use it to sniff along the gas lines looking for lease. And Laura, and and you probably have a better guess than most people, but what percentage of homes you think actually have a small gas leak that we find?
SPEAKER_01
70 to 80 percent. Not joking. Really?
SPEAKER_02
You think it's that high?
SPEAKER_01
I think it's that high.
SPEAKER_02
I was thinking like 30.
SPEAKER_01
No, I think I'm not saying they're huge, but we find gas leaks in a lot of the houses that we inspect.
SPEAKER_02
Every week there's a gas leak somewhere.
SPEAKER_01
Every week we're we're getting something with the gas leak. So I I will have to admit I haven't gone through and and checked how many gas leak um we get added on to the orders versus how many don't. But I I'm thinking it's it's a very high number. And it may not like be huge, and like the the one we had last week, the inspector walked in and smelled gas right away, and he just pulled out the gas detector because it was that bad.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, but I want to talk about I I know I did the number one long time ago, and it was like 25% of the houses at least a small leak. So it and even and one time we I did an inspection on the house, they it'd been vacant. This is like 2008, 2009, where they a lot of vacant houses. They turn the gas and power back on, and the gas company checks for leaks before they turn the power turn the gas back on because it's been vacant for a little while. They turn back on, they found no leaks. I found four little leaks in this place. So just because it was looked at by somebody else, that does not mean there's no leaks in it.
And I don't know what equipment they use. Why why wouldn't theirs be as sensitive as ours? Like, and that's not the first time that's happened, and it's not been the last.
SPEAKER_02
A lot of them will just use that soap solution.
SPEAKER_01
It's just soap, like if it's that small, it's not going to pop a bubble.
SPEAKER_02
It won't blow a bubble very quickly, but you also have to make so you get the soap on the correct spot.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_02
So when we do we have a combustible gas leak detector that sniffs the kind of makes it sniffs the air where we put that tip, and it can pick up the gap the combustible gases.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_02
So that's how R works. Because the soap, it works, but you gotta first you gotta make sure you can see that side that has the where it's gonna maybe form a bubble, and you gotta make sure you spray it on and everything. So, but anyway, so gas leaks, they're common, not unusual. We kind of set some rules that we'll be going over the inspectors other next time with me with it. Just just remind them that uh if you find a gas leak, but you don't find it like you you smell it. Well, well let's do let's go easiest to worst. Okay. Let's say you don't find the gas leak until you put your detector right up to it.
SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02
Okay. That that is a small leak. Right. Not I mean, is it a safety issue? Yeah. How long would it take for the a tiny thing to fill
the room up to cause explosion? Probably a long time.
SPEAKER_01
So you've got time to get it fixed, is what he's saying.
SPEAKER_02
So we can't find let's use the detector. Cool, get it fixed. Not a real big deal.
SPEAKER_00
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SPEAKER_02
We go in the house, everything's fine. We go down the basement, open the room that has the furnace in there. Bam, we smell gas. Didn't even get the detector out, we smelled it. Okay, that one we're gonna call the list agent and let them know there's a leak there.
SPEAKER_01
They need to get a plumber out to fix it.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, because all they need is tighten up the pipes. Maybe take them off, put a new putty on or whatever, but seal those pipes back up. So that one we're gonna make a phone call. Hey, she knows a gas leak here. And then what I would do is usually I kind of air that air air area out a little bit, air it out, and you can continue like normally would.
SPEAKER_01
Now, question that would impact a radon test, airing that out.
SPEAKER_02
So Well, what it was should yes, if if I dilute it with outside air. Yes, right. I would probably turn on the fan and just spread it, spread it out so thin, it's never gonna be an issue. It's in the house already.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_02
I just diluted it a ton. Even then, it's not likely to cause any kind of issue. Now, if we get to a house, open the front door, and we smell it. No. No, we're gonna.
SPEAKER_01
Because we've had that.
SPEAKER_02
Yep, I've had that. We're not gonna be going into the house. Probably not gonna turn on any light switches because we don't need sparks.
SPEAKER_01
Sparks would not be your friend.
SPEAKER_02
That was one we immediately called the listening age and go, hey, it seems like there's a pretty large gas leak here.
SPEAKER_01
Someone needs to fix it. Yes.
SPEAKER_02
Now, are we gonna shut the gas off? No. Nope. Because if we wow. First of all, if it's a small gas leak and we shut the gas off to the whole house, it's wintertime. You might freeze pipes, cause more damage. If it's a small gas leak, it's not gonna cause issues in the first place. So that's not our call to make. Now, if there was a gas big gas leak at a say a gas fireplace, there's a control knob right there. That doesn't affect the entire house. That one, we could possibly do that one. But if it's leaking at that valve, uh no, you might make the leak worse by turning the turning the valve.
SPEAKER_01
Right.
SPEAKER_02
So that's kind of what we do with it for the gas leaks. Should expect it to be in the house fairly often. Not every house, but it it does show up consistently, like I don't know, 20 to 70% is our range, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I I and I don't know. I I just know every week we I see something about gas leaks.
SPEAKER_02
Wow, it may be, yeah, it's probably more along the 25% with the number of houses that we do. Because if it's just a small gas leak only detected by the detector next to it, I'm not calling the office. I'm putting in the notes. Because it's not it's not a severe deal. And also, we've had real estate agents when we call and tell them about the little gas leak, they're annoyed.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we don't we don't do the little ones anymore. We just do the big ones.
pissed at us for calling, and then others would like throw fit. We don't talk about the little ones.
SPEAKER_01
So something policy.
SPEAKER_02
I think that has to deal with the uh agents' own paranoia about gas. Because I had I did an inspection one time, this lady who was not gonna buy the house because they had a gas cook stove, she realized she was not comfortable with gas. Fortunately, this place already had an electrical line hook up behind the gas stove. And I looked and saw that you just pull this out, you got electric hookup. She was like, Oh, so that's it. That's faved up. Yeah, that's fake that aspect saved it for. But gas leaks, they can be a big deal, but typically they're not a big deal.
SPEAKER_01
No, everything is repairable. Like, and and a gas leak isn't gonna be that expensive to fix.
SPEAKER_02
No, no, no, just have a plumber come out. Correct. All right, anything else you can think about this one, Laura?
leaks, radon leaks, totally different gas. So you need that you should do both tests, especially especially they do not have even they do have a radon system already, because those have failed. We have found houses with active radon systems that have high radon because of some other home improvements that were done that were not correct, not should not have been done in the first place. Or the fans failed. We have seen that as well. Motors running, but the blades aren't spinning.
SPEAKER_01
We also saw one where they had the mitigation system and the pipe came down into the pit, but it was all the way down. So the fan was sucking up water and you could hear it gurgling. They needed to pick that pipe up so that the fan could actually suck and take all of the radon out. So, like that one needed some actual work.
SPEAKER_02
Could be a bad install.
SPEAKER_01
Could be a bad install.
SPEAKER_02
And and as inspectors, we see bad radon installs.
SPEAKER_01
Yes, yes, we do.
SPEAKER_02
And you, Laura, you are a licensed mitigator. You have the course and you know how they're supposed to be set up. So we often will verify with the lawyer, hey, does this look right? It's like, nope. And we're like, all right, that's all we need.
SPEAKER_01
No, it does not.
SPEAKER_02
So it's not like our inspectors are just making up stuff. Like, right. No, we would we know and we verify with uh Laura, the licensed radon mitigator, even though we never do radon mitigation, we don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_01
I have no desire to do that.
SPEAKER_02
Nope. I don't mind.
SPEAKER_01
I would need to go to work with the company to to be able to really do that and and get practiced at it before. Because there was no practical in it. And I'm my my learning method is by doing, so I can't just it's not ro it's not rocket sized. No, but you just but like sitting here and and drilling through the concrete to get to the subslab and put the pipe in, or you know, using the sump pump. It's just a technical skill that you just need to learn how to do. And I would prefer to do that under somebody who's gonna train your competition.
SPEAKER_02
And as a light mitigator, you would not have to physically do that stuff yourself. That is true. You would just need to watch somebody go you have to go, yep, there's a hole through the slab, good enough. Good job. Oh, yep, you dug out a little bit of gravel. Okay, good.
SPEAKER_01
Keep that pipe up over that gravel so it doesn't fall in.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you could totally start your own radon mitigation company. Yeah. I but I just but you wouldn't have to just just you just have to check on it. That's that's about it. So anyway, that's
it. Gas leaks, propane, natural gas, not uncommon.
SPEAKER_01
We do have a basic protection package that has gas leak checking, termite, thermal imaging, and radon that a lot of people get. So when you're scheduling online, I would look for that, and then that'll cover. Yeah, that gives a little bit of a discount, also. It gives a bit of a discount for it.
