`Corrugated stainless steel gas pipe lightning strike fires`

The problem is lightning. They first started selling it big time in 1997. By late 1998 they started getting complaints of fires, and by February of 1998 they knew for certain it had to do with lightning. By 2000 they knew for sure they were getting perforation. [Tom shows a perforated CSST sample.] You can see a little hole there. Lightning comes, storm comes by, hits your house, here's the hole — perforates the tube and you've got a blowtorch shooting out of the wall inside your house. Houses tend to burn down — a couple hundred a year. One guy got killed in Texas because of this.

Substitution from black iron pipe to CSST for residential gas supply; consequent lightning-strike puncture fires. Holman shows a fire-site photograph.

The next one is what's called corrugated stainless steel tubing, CSST. This was an issue because a lot of home contractors wanted to get away from black iron pipe. This is what used to be a threaded pipe — the gas connection to your house. The gas would come in through a black iron pipe. One of the reasons they wanted to get away from it is because the CSST is more flexible. Rather than having a threaded connection with elbows and tees, they could use this material which has some flex to it.