2020 is the year when gas piping inspections mandated by Local Law 152 of 2016 started being required.
The law technically became effective in 2017, but it took the Department of Buildings two years to establish the rules by which Licensed Master Plumbers would be certified to conduct the inspections, the inspection protocols themselves, and, presumably, the inspection reports themselves.
This law feels like the culmination of the City Council's attempt to "fix" the issues that lead to catastrophic natural gas explosions in 2014 (Harlem) and 2015 (East Village).
We've seen many changes at the Dept of Buildings levels, like that time in 2016 when DOB unilaterally started rejecting plumbing permit applications if the boiler of the subject building didn't have a permitted boiler with an exact serial number on file. No notice.
Then came the rule that no one is allow to shut off a gas meter to a building except a licensed plumber and that ConEd had to be notified immediately (or called to do the shut down themselves). That's a law.
Next came the law that ConEd can't do any turn-ons until the Department of Buildings receives a valid permit and witnesses a gas pipe integrity inspection. So, suddenly your little turn off of the meter just to address one little thing has turned into a multi-month process, *if* you have the correct previous permits for your boiler (see above) and the gas piping itself. (that's two different permits, FYI, because the boiler may have been replaced on the same piping).
If you don't have either, then you have to re-file all the gas piping in your building. Enter an engineer for several thousand dollars. You get the work done (more thousands), then you get your inspection hopefully. You rarely pass the first time. Or, if you do pass, you get to apply for your blue card, and you might have to re-file the application wording so that it's just so.
In a recent application that required zero work, just a gas integrity test to restore service after a prior tenant terminated their account, my plumber was forced to re-file the permit 3 times to reference various prior permits, and to get the language just right. Each time it cost $35. I got lucky because the piping was modern and was already up to code.
For older buildings, luck has run out, and it gets tougher the older the building is, because in some cases still-functional gas piping could be approaching 100 years old, and law prohibits repair of gas piping - only full replacement from meter to appliance.
If you notice above, to replace gas piping you must shut off the meter. That can only be done by ConEd, and turn-on can only occur after Dept of Buildings has witnessed an integrity test.
The complexity of the process all but guarantees that people will resist upgrading their gas infrastructure for as long as possible.
So, I guess, into the breach comes Local Law 152. The law, at the time I heard it, sounded like the inspection was intended to proactively find leaks and dangerous conditions where a pipe was about to corrode away. Licensed plumbers would do this by inspecting with a sniffer, "...public spaces, hallways, corridors, and mechanical and boiler rooms with a portable combustible gas detector to determine if there is any gas leak..."
Made sense to me. Proactively require owners to inspect for imminently dangerous conditions every 5 years.
But the law didn't stop there: in addition to immediately hazardous conditions such as leaks or badly corroded pipes, or illegal installations (think garden hose connections, like the one that caused the East Village explosion in 2015), the plumber is required to also report "...any observed non-code compliant installations..."
There is the beef! New York City is FULL of non-code compliant installations... because over the decades there have been many updates to the building code! And these installations are considered grandfathered, so long as they are safe. But the law seems to say (and inspections are being conducted as if) it is the modern day code that these inspections must occur under.
But the law appears to disallow what were formerly stable, grandfather gas installations of yesteryear: The law requires "non-code compliant installations" to be fixed immediately, and it only gives a 120 day window (plus 180 days if a plumber certifies that it is necessary) to get it done. That's 10 months.
That's not enough time - by a long shot - to replace gas piping in an occupied building. More on that later.
Every building over a 2-family dwelling in NYC has to be inspected - 3 or 4 community boards at a time (This year it's all buildings that fall into CB 1, 3 or 10), in each of the 5 boroughs, each YEAR.
That's thousands of buildings, each year, that will be reported to have non-compliant installations. And to fix those issues, it will require engineering plans, permits, and a building shutdown, to be in compliant with the rest of the building codes. The process takes more than 6-10 months. Sorry, City Council, but it does. Even with the move to digital permit filing at the DOB, it takes a really long time. What to hear a potential real-life scenario? Keep reading.
Let's not forget we are having a COVID-19 pandemic. That means we don't know what's happening yet. Everything that was supposed to start in January got pushed 6-9 months. Many plumbers, concerned by the amount of responsibility conferred on them by the law, were ambivalent about offering the inspections. And then, when they decided to do it, they had to send their inspectors through a certification class. Hence, many inspectors just came on line in late summer and early fall. And they are just starting to file their preliminary reports. No news back from DOB about shutdowns on code compliance.
The leak is just turning into a trickle.
Many building owners just aren't thinking about it. The deadline to file the first inspection report is December 31. Plumbers are just starting to get those calls. They don't have much time get to things fixed before the the inspection reports are due.
Personal experience so far: One building dating back into the mid-1800s - is mandated to do the Local Law 152 inspections this year. We have done it and have no leaks or serious corrosion. But there are code issues (on the 80+ year old pipes with no corrosion). The pipes have some steel fittings. Steel is no longer code to use in gas piping. It would seem we are mandated to replace these... in 10 months. We could keep the gas on while the plans and permits were being prepared, but then... shut down.
Here's where my other real life experience kicks in for extrapolation of likely outcome: If lucky, the work would take a month to do (we'd be somewhere around January/February by then... great time to turn off the heat), then we get our first inspection. Then our second (there's always a second inspection). They decide a boiler inspection is necessary, even though no work was done on a boiler. Then maybe a third. We pass, finally. It's probably nearly May. We apply for gas authorization. We are asked to revise the permit language. Maybe to reference a permit that doesn't exist in the records. A few more weeks (this has happened to me. Not just making it up, friends). Finally we get gas authorization. ConEd comes to the building to check the conditions. If we're lucky, it's good to go. The turn-on happens in 48-72 hours.
But maybe ConEd feel like the meter bars need replacing. Or maybe, they decide the building is "underserviced" (meaning the gas pipe coming into the building is too small for the gas load). They say it's not dangerous. Changes need to be made. They won't turn the gas on. Or they will turn on the heating meter but not the cooking gas stoves. Until ANOTHER permit is filed, ANOTHER shutdown is done, so that they can upgrade something that the utility is responsible for.
Again, I'm not throwing out any possibility that I haven't personally witnessed happening in a building, in sequence! All of these things have happened in my buildings. And not all have old piping!
Doesn't DOB know this is how it goes?
Did the City Council think about this when they wrote the law this way? I'm sure the Plumbers Association told them. Did they assume everyone who owns a building in New York is rich (even after they take 50-60% of the income in yearly property taxes?)
Feels like a feel-good law that had momentum in the wake of two tragedies. But it defies reality.
Next question:
What is the DOB going to do when they see thousands of reports of non-compliant piping in buildings that aren't about to blow up?
Nothing dangerous, just old pipes that you don't have to replace just this minute. Steel pipes. Pipes that have plugs or joints that aren't legal now, but were then? These little things can't just be replaced - the whole pipe has to be replaced from stem to stern.
Another predictable scenario: the owners paid for the inspection, but they just can't afford or manage the wholesale replacement of their building's gas pipes in 10 months.
A job of this type requires planning. It requires informing tenants and getting their buy-in. It might require relocating fragile tenants. If you try to keep tenants in place, you have $15,000-$20,000/month in portable heating to budget in. On top of up to $10,000 for engineering drawings and permits, and whatever the work costs.
What if the building can't afford to do the shutdown work because 30% of the tenants haven't paid rent due to the pandemic? what if it's full of seniors in rent stabilized apartments? Or children? What if it's a self-managed co-op with middle-income owner-occupants?
Do they all get shut down? Fined?
The plumber says about 80% of the building's he's inspected so far (hundreds) have issues that would require a shut down to fix.
Do we have wholesale punitive shutdowns in CB 1, 3 and 10 in each borough this year? As a sort of example to the other CBs? Get a fire lit (no pun intended) to get those gas pipes modernized?
I don't know. No one knows, because the law, and subsequent DOB guidelines, say nothing about it.
My opinion is that an amendment should be passed immediately that stipulates that buildings with non-code compliant, but stable, piping, should be allowed to stay that way until the next 5-year inspection, or permitted construction, whichever comes first.
The way the law is written, thousands are wondering if their gas is going to be shut off this winter.
And no one knows who to ask.
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