# Gaslight's Time Has Come **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 9, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189 "2012-09-09T13:34:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/1 "2012-09-09T13:34:00Z")
[**This thread**](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=664614) on electrical outlets in houses started me wondering why no one builds a house with natural-gas fittings for lighting or has it installed in an existing house where power failures can be frequent and long — hurricane-prone areas, for instance. Or even rare and short. Or do power-utility robber barons wearing diamond stick pins and 24-karat gold pocket watches regularly meet in smoke-filled back rooms to conspire against gaslight and bribe lawmakers to make gaslight illegal? It wouldn’t cost much more when building a house, since gas pipes are installed routinely in basements, utility rooms and kitchens, anyway. I can see the commercial now. “When _your_ power goes out, why deal with noisy, smelly and expensive generators that refuse to start? Why not try gaslight! It’s quiet, efficient, bright, inexpensive — and romantic!” In a grungy basement some sweaty, exhausted and extremely frustrated guy with grease all over his face and shirt and leaning over a pull-start generator that won’t, looks up at the camera, astonished at the idea. Cut to the same guy, recognizable now as a James Bond type, in a tuxedo and standing in a luxurious room turns down an overly bright flame in a huge multi-faceted chandelier. With a mile-wide grin he sits next to a pussy galore who’s leaning back seductively, elbow on the sofa arm, etc., etc. I think gaslight’s time has come. Seriously, why not? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/2 "2012-09-09T13:49:31Z")
that’s a booming idea. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/3 "2012-09-09T14:15:35Z")
I think you’re just being emotional about all this. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/4 "2012-09-09T14:20:18Z")
You might look up “flashlight” on the internet. Modern LED flashlights will work for ages, don’t generate heat, can be carried about to and fro, and, as the previous poster hinted, don’t have conduits containing explosive materials that can go boom during natural disasters. Electrical generators are not used exclusively for lights but for keeping things like refrigerators, radios and TVs running. Unless you can make an internet router that runs on natural gas, I know I’m not interested. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/5 "2012-09-09T14:27:26Z")
Do you have any experience with gaslights? Are they as “quiet, efficient, bright, inexpensive” as you suggest? Isn’t electrical lighting (perhaps powered by a gas-supplied electric generator) more efficient? And you’d still want a generator to power the refrigerator, computer, TV and other devices in the house. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/6 "2012-09-09T14:34:10Z")
If burning torches were good enough for the powerful god-like space traveling G’houl, then gaslights should be plenty good enough for us puny humans. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/7 "2012-09-09T14:34:24Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > Modern LED flashlights will work for ages, don’t generate heat, can be carried about to and fro, and, as the previous poster hinted, don’t have conduits containing explosive materials that can go boom during natural disasters. Millions of gas furnaces, water heaters, stoves and dryers fail to blow up every year > [@](#): > > Electrical generators are not used exclusively for lights but for keeping things like refrigerators, radios and TVs running. Unless you can make an internet router that runs on natural gas, I know I’m not interested. A friend who lived in a remote Newfoundland outport told me his family had a kerosene TV. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/8 "2012-09-09T14:38:36Z")
One obvious problem is that in the summer, gaslights are going to heat up the house, which isn’t very desirable. (Well, actually, they’re going to heat up the house throughout the year, but it’s in the summer when this is particularly undesirable.) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/9 "2012-09-09T14:39:16Z")
It could work if people used mantles with radioactive catalysts and didn’t mind the smell and the noise and the occasional death to gas suffocation or carbon monoxide poisoning or fire or explosion. I think you should invest everything you own in developing this idea. ---
**Author:** ![missred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/missred/32/14096_2.png) [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/10 "2012-09-09T14:46:17Z")
The capper: in some parts of the country, most houses are NOT built with gas hook-ups. In those parts of the country, electric is usually the most cost effective way to cook and heat with, so few homes are built to accomodate natural gas. To retrofit would be pretty expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/11 "2012-09-09T14:50:17Z")
> [@missred](#): > > The capper: in some parts of the country, most houses are NOT built with gas hook-ups. In those parts of the country, electric is usually the most cost effective way to cook and heat with, so few homes are built to accomodate natural gas. To retrofit would be pretty expensive. That’s true in my case, although most of my neighbors have propane tanks, the equivalent of natural gas. I don’t like the idea of the fumes and C0[sub]2[/sub] given off by a burning flame in a closed environment, even for a stove. Electric is much cleaner. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/12 "2012-09-09T14:58:16Z")
Do you need a specific kind of gas for lighting? We lived in an area served by natural-gas pipelines, and had a natural-gas stove. (The heat of a gas stove is much more quickly controllable than that of an electric stove, BTW–much better to cook on.) People beyond the service area of the natural-gas pipelines have to put in a propane tank and take deliveries, if they want gas. You can certainly get propane stoves; my friends up north had a propane _fridge_ in their rustic electricity-less cabin. Retrofitting gas service is not _that_ expensive, though it isn’t trivial. Putting in a propane tank or hooking up to a gas pipeline running past your suburban driveway is certainly less expensive than running a electrical pole line for more than a few hundred metres. It all depends on your precise situation and what services are available. I believe natural gas is mostly methane. Propane is a different substance. I also believe that the gaslight era used ‘town gas’ which was created by baking coal; I don’t know what was in it, but I suspect it was a mixture of flammable gases. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/13 "2012-09-09T15:05:29Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > Millions of gas furnaces, water heaters, stoves and dryers fail to blow up every yearA friend who lived in a remote Newfoundland outport told me his family had a kerosene TV. OK, run the numbers on converting all your appliances to run on natural gas for the rare times that the electricity is out vs paying $1K for a single electric generator. And while “millions of gas furnaces”, etc… fail to explode every year, what’s the first thing that emergency response teams do during natural disasters? They turn off the gas mains so they can check for leaks. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/14 "2012-09-09T15:12:20Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > Millions of gas furnaces, water heaters, stoves and dryers fail to blow up every year gas lines with that are kept minimal. for gas illumination you had a pipe run, valve and fixture to everywhere you would put a light fixture, actually more because gas isn’t as bright. many dozens of more failure points in the system. portable electrical illumination is bright and easy. gas camping lanterns are bright, portable and safer than piped gas for emergencies. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/15 "2012-09-09T16:17:05Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > If burning torches were good enough for the powerful god-like space traveling G’houl, then gaslights should be plenty good enough for us puny humans. Exactly! > [@Finagle](#): > > OK, run the numbers on converting all your appliances to run on natural gas for the rare times that the electricity is out vs paying $1K for a single electric generator. Nothing would be converted. Just pipes added, with a main valve to turn the flow on to them when the power goes out. > [@](#): > > And while “millions of gas furnaces”, etc… fail to explode every year, what’s the first thing that emergency response teams do during natural disasters? They turn off the gas mains so they can check for leaks. I didn’t think that would add much danger because I probably could count on one hand the houses and other buildings here that don’t have gas, so that danger exists in any event. There would be no danger if it’s simply a power failure. The last one here occurred a few weeks ago when a truck took out a power pole about a mile away. The electricity was off for three or four hours, during daylight. I lived near Toronto a few years ago when the most recent East Coast-ish failure knocked it out for days. I ran a search and found there were only a few quakes felt here since 1610 that meant anything, each probably about 3.5 or less. One in 1909 was felt from Montana and one near or under Hudson Bay. But OK, so the time for gaslight hasn’t arrived. > [@TriPolar](#): > > I think you should invest everything you own in developing this idea. I was thinking of letting you in for 50 per cent after hitting you up for the financing, but with all the pessimism expressed here, I guess you’ll have to forget your hopes for gaslight riches beyond the dreams of avarice. Oh — just in case — the kerosene TV was a joke after he talked about their propane fridge and mantle lamps. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/16 "2012-09-09T18:17:38Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > OK, run the numbers on converting all your appliances to run on natural gas for the rare times that the electricity is out vs paying $1K for a single electric generator. I’m not agreeing with the OP, but I’d like to point out that a single electric generator won’t solve most household power outages without a cutoff and transfer switch. An electrician quoted me $1500 to install one of those. Makes a large battery-powered lantern for light look like a bargain, and MREs look more attractive for food. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gaslights-time-has-come/634189/17 "2012-09-09T19:37:25Z")
But no James Bond. Only the engergizer bunny.