Gas troubles?

There was some drama around here today boy! There was talk of the house (and whole block) being blown to smithereens! Here's some advice: when you move a gas dryer, you need to cap the gas line.  Oh and its important to have the gas lines labeled correctly too!  ...and if you haven't followed protocol, don't invite two jumpy appliance repair guys/technicians over.

We had our oven fixed today - a fairly routine job. One tech went downstairs to shut off the gas...and since the lines were mislabeled the gas remained on. They started pulling apart the stove and we smelled gas. At that very same moment (no lie - the timing was EXACT) my contractor accidentally set off all the fire alarms in the house.  It was ridiculously loud in here and I had no idea how to shut those bad boys off...picture me with the baby on my hip while I stabbed my umbrella at the ceiling trying to hit the reset button for the alarm (didn't work). Anyways gas and fire, not a good mix, right? Needless to say people were on edge.

The techs sorta freaked out a little bit and told me if I didn't have the dryer line capped in 10 mins they would shut us down and red flag us. They were worried about the house blowing up. In fact, they said it could be like that huge explosion off the 401 last year when a propane storage facility blew up. They must have been expecting me to panic, when I didn't, they repeated how dangerous a situation we were in, how they could lose their license, how they couldn't sleep at night knowing a family could be killed, blah blah blah....Now its not like I didn't understand, and I really don't want my house to blow up, but I kept thinking: "could you save me the horror stories and just fix the damn thing?"

The contractor immediately called his gas guy to come over and cap it.  But by then the one tech had worked himself up into such a frenzy that he shut us down and called the TSSA (they are like the gas police). The other tech mentioned something about calling his dad (kinda random - I know!)

The first inspector on the scene didn't do much.  He must have been waiting for reinforcements.  Then came the second inspector: white hair, white mustache, mirror aviator shades, and a TSSA button down shirt. Intimidation was clearly his game plan. One-by-one he pulled us aside to ask questions while jotting notes down in his little notebook. (He asked me to confirm my address with postal code).   

So what happened? Within the first couple minutes after the gas guy arrived the line was capped and the problem was solved. The contractor admitted it was his mistake for not calling the gas guy when he moved the dryer two weeks ago (all you other homeowners out there take note, don't skip this simple step!). The contractor will have to pay a few hundred dollars for the inspectors time (the inspectors were here for over an hour)...and everyone was nailed with a parking ticket.

The inspector really threw the book at us.  The crew was going to suspend the boiler from the joists while they underpinned around it.  Not allowed!! The boiler needs to be disconnected while they work. So we have no heat in the house for the next couple of weeks. That's OK though because there is a bright side: there is no longer any danger of our house spontaneously combusting and taking out half the city with it!!!!!!!!!!!