The Ministry of Construction has planned a complete ban on the installation of individual gas heating appliances

This is how the department wants to deal with gas explosions in apartment buildings

The Ministry of Construction decided to reduce to zero the risks of household gas explosions in apartments. The agency plans to introduce a complete ban for citizens on the installation of individual gas heating appliances.

The Ministry of Construction has developed a draft amendment to the law “On Heat Supply”. They are designed to radically change the situation with gas boilers and boilers, which people often install, most often in old high-rise buildings.

As the developers of the bill said, the current version of the law on heat supply allows the transition from centralized heating to individual heating. To do this, the owner of the apartment needs to prepare: make a redevelopment plan, get the consent of all the neighbors, and also make sure that the heat supply scheme of the house allows such a maneuver.

However, such a seemingly well-thought-out scheme was recognized by the Ministry of Construction as incorrect due to the monstrous statistics of accidents with domestic gas. According to the data cited by the agency with reference to Rosstat, in 2020 there were 11.7 thousand incidents when gas was used in residential buildings. In particular, 8.2 thousand accidents occurred due to the emergency condition of the in-house or in-house gas equipment: the pipes were rusted or the connections were not tight enough. 1.6 thousand incidents occurred due to lack of draft in the smoke and ventilation duct. 1.2 thousand incidents – due to unauthorized gasification or repair work. The cause of 572 accidents was an explosion of a gas-air mixture. Another 52 tragedies are due to a gas cylinder rupture or leakage. Finally, 32 “gas” incidents are the result of the suicide of the apartment owners themselves.

The Ministry of Construction emphasizes that in recent years cases of domestic gas explosions in Russia have become more frequent. The developers of the amendments are sure that in many cases the incident is a direct consequence of the transition

for heating one or more residential premises for individual residential sources of thermal energy powered by natural gas.

“The use of gas in everyday life, in particular the transition of at least one room in an apartment building to individual sources of thermal energy powered by natural gas, remains dangerous and requires tougher legislation,” the Ministry of Construction commented.

In addition, according to officials, the transition of one or more premises in a high-rise building with central heating to individual heating entails a violation of the rights of other owners in an apartment building. For example, as a result of such a manipulation, at least in one apartment, the temperature drops in adjacent rooms, and the hydraulic regime in the house heating system is disrupted.

To remedy the situation, the Ministry of Construction proposes to establish a direct ban on the transition to heating one or more premises in apartment buildings using individual gas-fired thermal energy sources. At the same time, it is assumed that the possibility of switching to individual sources of thermal energy operating on other types of fuel will be preserved.