(A documentary version of this blog is available on YouTube.)

America is the world’s most innovative nation. The country has a rich history of fostering groundbreaking developments in various fields, including technology, medicine, aerospace, and more. However, as with any powerful force, there is a dark side to innovation, which is the forced consumerization of  defective products.

The most common defective products are new ‘innovative’ products that are found to be unsafe shortly after being introduced because of unforeseen interactions   or design flaws. Innovation is a high-risk, capital-intensive enterprise. Typically the ‘capitalist investors’  will seek to squeeze as much profit / gains as they possibly can from the  defective product downplaying any and all adverse side effects or defects until public awareness of the defect grows  or government regulations catch up. Examples: Radium, DDT, asbestos,  new pharmaceutical drugs with unknown side effects to mention a few.

THE ‘NEW NORMAL’ DEFECTIVE PRODUCT: However  one of the rarer categories of defective product is one that has a well-established defective quality but continues to remain on the market ‘immortal’ as it were.  The stakeholders invested in this type of defective product,  rather than admit to the defect, go about creating a ‘new normal’ to continue to profit from the consumerization of the defective product without facing any consequences and this may last for many decades, even though the ‘defect’ or ‘flaw’ is obvious and stares at you in the face.  No industry stands out more in this category than big tobacco.

1860s ‘THE OLD NORMAL’: NICOTINE IS ADDICTIVE AND TOBACCO SMOKING IS HARMFUL

Harper’s Weekly  founded in 1857 was the American “newspaper of record”  until 1912.  As early as 1862, tobacco addiction was a recognized problem, and various “cures” were offered to users. In 1867, the editor of Harper’s Weekly, George William Curtis, identified the three major health dangers of tobacco use:  cancer, heart disease, and lung disease. The tobacco industry responded to these public health concerns by marketing tobacco products that were “healthful” and contained “no nicotine.”  1868 NICOTINE FREE tobacco ads appear on the US market. Lorillard’s Yacht Club smoking tobacco (for pipes) advertises, “ALL POISONOUS NICOTINE IS EXTRACTED.”!

1960s NEW NORMAL: NICOTINE IS PERFECTLY SAFE AND TOBACCO SMOKING IS HEALTHY!

Fast forward to the 1960s.   Doctors were recommending  cigarettes to pregnant women and the science of the day declared nicotine may not even be harmful at all.

Even the Flintstones advertised and encouraged cigarette consumption!

1960s NEW NORMAL: NICOTINE IS A GREAT PESTICIDE!

The most obvious and bizarre fact that stands out is that  by the 1960s, the  neuro-toxic properties of nicotine were much better understood than in the 1850s, so much so that  American and European chemical companies had perfected commercial nicotine pesticides derived from tobacco extracts for large scale agricultural use.

THE DUAL SCIENTIFIC REALITIES OF THE 1960s:

In one reality, nicotine has no ill effects on health, it is not a toxin  and safe for doctors, pregnant / nursing women and the general public. In the second parallel reality, nicotine from the same tobacco plant is a highly effective toxin that acts as a broad-spectrum insecticide for a variety of pests and insects. 

BIG TOBACCO’S NEW NORMAL: Inhaling a commercial agricultural pesticide is healthy and cool!

The tobacco industry created a “new normal” in American and European public consciousness — a dual reality about the dangers of nicotine addiction. It did so by funding flawed medical research specifically designed to manufacture scientific uncertainty, confusion, doubt, and controversy about nicotine’s harmful effects. All the while, the industry knew that nicotine’s addictive properties were the primary reason consumers continued to buy tobacco products.

This was possible because there was no ‘internet’ and the only source(s) of information the average citizen relied on to stay informed and to validate Big Tobacco’s ‘facts’ and ‘science’ were universities and newspapers.  Eventually after decades of hyper-litigation, ‘big tobacco’ became ‘slightly smaller tobacco’ after losing the ability to pass off blatant lies and propaganda as facts in their advertising. They are now forced to warn consumers that they will get sick and suffer ill health, if the consumer consumes their product. This was no big public victory. This was a little step toward honest marketing and that was made possible only after the landmark settlement, the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) was reached in 1998 between major U.S. tobacco companies and 46 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories. 

Health issues / side effects caused by defective products can be easily denied and public perception of reality skewed by agenda driven medical science, but what about engineering defects for example, that rely on hard physics? One would think that it would be impossible for an industry  to create a new normal around engineering defects, since engineering defects will cause the exact same mode of product failure over and over again. Creating an engineering ‘new normal’ to cover up a dangerous defect in a common household product would in theory require subverting public perception and reinterpreting the fundamental laws of physics for decades like big tobacco and nicotine… surely an impossible task in this day and age of ‘science trusting’, the internet and social media? Well you may be in for a surprise to find out how easy it actually is, to subvert ‘modern science and engineering’!

THE CURIOUS CASE OF C.S.S.T

Behold CSST or Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing!  Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing (CSST) is a flexible piping material used for transporting natural gas or propane inside residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. Most people probably have never heard of it, but if you own a home with natural gas built sometime after the late 1980s, chances are, there are multiple CSST gas lines totaling anywhere between 100ft to 250ft in length, servicing multiple gas appliances in your home.

CSST DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION:

The construction of CSST is extremely  simple and comprises essentially two layers, an inner gas transport layer and an outer insulation layer. The inner layer that transports natural gas is a thin walled stainless steel tube with corrugations to make it flexible.  The price of flexibility is the extremely thin wall, approximately 4 mils (0.1~0.2mm) thick, making the stainless steel tubing layer as thin as a sheet of A4 printing paper. 

The second outer layer, protects the inner thin walled stainless steel tubing layer and is made of polyethylene. This outer polymer jacket is the only protection against physical damage, protecting the inner thin walled corrugated stainless steel gas transport layer.

1990s EXIT IRON PIPE – ENTER CSST!

Flexible CSST was invented and deployed for piping natural gas in Japan in the early 1980s as an alternative to rigid iron pipe that ruptured and caused massive fires following earthquakes. CSST was introduced in the USA during the late 80s and quickly became the first choice for building and plumbing contractors starting in the early 90s to present day 2026! The 90s were boom time for real estate in America which saw an explosive growth in suburban tract housing projects in highly populated lightning belt states like Texas, Florida, North and South Carolina, Ohio, New Jersey,  etc., and natural gas was the preferred choice for home buyers.

CSST became the number one choice because of its flexibility. The flexibility of CSST, significantly reduced the labor and time required for installation compared to rigid iron pipes. Fewer fittings mean a faster installation process which reduces labor and installation time making the entire gas piping  process highly profitable and cost efficient for large tract housing projects which translates into more natural gas consumers.

Not surprisingly, the natural gas industry loved CSST because it dramatically boosted their consumer base with the explosion of tract housing. By 2012, over a billion feet of CSST gas lines had been installed and most of it in residential homes in just the United States alone. Chances are, if your home was built after the 90s and has natural gas, then you  most likely have CSST gas lines supplying natural gas to appliances in your home.

CSST’S FATAL FLAW

However, CSST, the prodigal product of the natural gas industry and preferred choice of building contractors has a fatal design flaw. CSST is highly vulnerable to lightning ground currents; especially indirect lightning ground currents which can cause CSST to rupture even if the lightning strike happens 3 miles away. A quick search of YouTube reveals a plethora of CSST fire news reports, including warnings from National Association of Insurance Commissioners and National Association of Fire Marshals. A few examples:

CSST LAWSUITS

To no one’s surprise CSST has become the subject of class action litigation and numerous individual defective product liability lawsuits. Curiously, CSST liability lawsuits are typically settled out of court between CSST manufacturers and /or victims’ insurance companies via subrogation lawsuits.  You will find that virtually every major insurer in the US has sued virtually every major CSST manufacturer to recover fire loss payouts via subrogation. To rub salt on the wound, plumbing contractors who have nothing to do with CSST design or manufacturing also face subrogation lawsuits by insurance companies. CSST fires are thus completely now accepted as part and parcel of daily life in the USA. If you are a home owner, then CSST will lower the value of your home depending on the state you live in. In Texas for example, home owners are required to disclose to all potential buyers if they have CSST in their homes prior to closing a sale.

CSST FATALITIES

CSST fires caused by lightning ground currents have also officially caused deaths. In one class-action lawsuit filed in Arkansas against several manufacturers, allegations included that CSST posed an unreasonable risk of fire from lightning strikes. At least one report indicated that, according to the agreement, a 2006 settlement worth about $29 million resolved the matter. In another case,a wrongful death lawsuit alleged that CSST gas line failure led to a 2008 fire that left three children and their grandmother dead in South Dakota.

THE DEATH OF BRENNAN TEEL

Brennen Teel was visiting friends in Lubbock, Texas when lightning struck nearby, causing a pinhole rupture in the CSST gas lines running in the attic of the home. When the attic door was opened, the natural gas ignited killing Mr. Teel. Following Brennen Teel’s death, his family started the Brennen Teel Foundation to raise awareness about CSST and its dangers. His death resulted in CSST being briefly banned before the CSST industry lobbied the Texas state legislature to unban CSST. 

CSST fires have killed fire fighters in the line of duty! 

Lieutenant Nathan Flynn of the Howard County (MD) Department of Fire and Rescue, and Battalion Chief Josh Laird of the Frederick County (MD) Department of Fire and Rescue (both promoted posthumously), were killed nearly three years apart to the day while fighting fires. Both firefighters died after falling through floors in large, lightweight, Type V, single-family dwellings. Both fires started when lightning strikes penetrated the dwellings, burning through the corrugated stainless steel tubing (CSST) used to supply gas to appliances. The ATF (Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms bureau) did an hour long Line of Duty Death (LODD) analysis video and can be seen on youtube.

THE CASE AGAINST CSST

Despite the loss of life, risk of natural gas home fires and property damage, CSST has not yet been declared a defective product like nicotine and  CSST continues to be sold in big box stores to this day without any aftermarket product or solution to permanently prevent CSST lightning failures. But perhaps the most disturbing fact is that CSST was never tested for the impact of lightning strikes and lightning ground currents during its adoption phase by CSST manufacturers or any building code approval body in the USA. Not one State, City or International code regulating body ever demanded that a lightning ground current vulnerability test be done prior to approving CSST for America’s home owners.

SO YOU TRUSTED THE CSST SCIENCE^™?

The US medical community and press knew about the dangers of nicotine as early 1868. What about the CSST industry’s equivalent? A corporation selling engineered products like CSST is reasonably expected to know about the basic material, physical and electrical properties of the product it sells and markets to the public. A corporation is also expected to consider its product defective if evidence shows the product’s design is unreasonably dangerous even when used in a reasonable manner and should provide solutions to mitigate the danger. If no mitigating solution exists then the defective product is to be recalled. This is how ‘the system’ is supposed to work in the USA.

In the news clip videos above, over and over again we hear CSST industry experts say there is no solution to the CSST problem except to repipe your home with iron pipe (very very expensive labor costs) or replace yellow CSST with newer ‘lightning proof arc resistant’ CSST. Are these claims SCIENTIFICALLY true from a product liability perspective?

• Is it really true that there are no simple physics based retrofit solutions to make CSST 100% safe permanently eliminating CSST lightning fire risk?
• Do newer ‘arc resistant CSST’ products actually work and if they do work why hasn’t classic yellow CSST been pulled off the market or banned nationwide outright?
• What is the history of ‘lightning ground current’ physics?
• What is the reasonably expected ‘public domain’ engineering and physics knowledge that the CSST industry must have had prior to commercially selling CSST in the US market with respect to the electrical properties of thin walled metal tubes, lightning ground currents and techniques to shield thin walled metal tubes from lightning ground currents? In other words, what did the CSST industry know and when did they know it?

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PHYSICS OF CSST LIGHTNING FIRES:

1752 Benjamin Franklin carries out his infamous lightning kite experiment.  Franklin discovered that lightning is an electrostatic phenomenon and that the earth was negatively charged. Franklin’s study of static electricity and the behavior of electric charges laid the foundations of modern electrostatics.  In 1756, just 4 years after his infamous kite experiment, Benjamin Franklin was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society acknowledging his contributions to the field of electricity.

1749-52 Louis-Guillaume Le Monnier, a French astronomer and physicist and contemporary of Benjamin Franklin in America made significant contributions to understanding earth’s fair-weather electric field. Le Monnier  observed like Franklin, observed that the earth’s surface was electrostatically charged and it generates an electric field that extends to the atmosphere even in fair weather.  His work contributed to the understanding that the atmosphere itself carries an electric charge that is energized by a surface charge that extends throughout the surface of the earth.

1813:   Carl Friedrich Gauss,  German mathematician and physicist publishes Gauss’ Law in its integral form in 1813. Gauss’ Law mathematically describes  the fundamental principle of how electrical charge is distributed only on the outer surface of conductive hollow objects, while the inner surface remains electrically neutral. Gauss’ Law is the fundamental principle that underlies the concept of electrostatic shielding, EMI (Electro-Magnetic Interference) shielding and lightning shielding techniques used in the present day. 

1836: Michael Faraday demonstrates the principle of electrostatic shielding. In his experiment, Faraday demonstrated the distribution of electric charge only on the outside of a conductive metal cage  now known as a Faraday cage or Faraday shield. When an electric charge was applied to the cage, only the outer surfaces of the cage energized while  the interior of the conductive cage remained electrically neutral. Faraday’s insights into electrostatic shielding form the basis of all electrostatic and electromagnetic shielding currently in use today, to protect sensitive equipment from lightning ground currents and other electrical transients.

1862: Lord Kelvin proposed the earliest version of capacitor earth theory in the late 19th century, which was later formalized by Scottish physicist C.T.R Wilson. The capacitor earth theory, in essence, suggests that the Earth acts as a giant capacitor in the context of electrical circuits, with a negative surface charge.  The Earth’s surface represents one plate of the capacitor. The other plate, according to Kelvin’s theory, is located in the upper atmosphere or the ionosphere, separated by the insulating atmospheric layers of the Earth and potential difference (voltage) between the Earth’s surface and the upper atmosphere, generates an electric field.

1865: James Clerk Maxwell publishes a comprehensive set of equations, known as Maxwell’s equations in a series of papers titled “A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field.” Maxwell’s equations describe the fundamental principles of electromagnetism, unifying the previously known laws governing electric and magnetic fields. Maxwell’s equations provide the theoretical foundation for understanding the skin effect, the tendency of high frequency lightning currents (radio frequency RF currents) to flow on the outer surface (skin) of  conductors.  Maxwell’s equations predict the design and shape of electrical conductors. For example  DC currents require solid conductors as opposed to high frequency RF lightning ground currents require thin walled hollow tubular conductors.

1899: Colorado: Nikola Tesla demonstrates LARGE AREA GROUND POTENTIAL RISE by illuminating lamps connected to earth-ground.    A ‘Tesla Coil transmitter’ oscillates the earth’s surface charge generating high voltage ground transients which energizes lamps spread out across a  field.

1830 to 1920s: The Golden Age of the Telegraph: The “Golden Age of the Telegraph” refers to a period during the mid-19th to early 20th century when telegraphy rapidly developed and became a crucial technology for long-distance communication. This era saw the widespread adoption and expansion of telegraph networks, revolutionizing the way information was transmitted.    It became standard modern telecom industry practice to protect  communications cables from lightning transients using shielding jackets  designed using the established physics principles of Gauss’s law and the Faraday cage; a practice and technique that continues to this day.

1920 Atmospheric electricity & Earth’s surface charge: The formal discovery of the Earth’s fair-weather electric field and capacitor earth theory is attributed to C. T. R. Wilson a Scottish physicist following his 1920 paper titled “The Electric Field at the Surface of the Earth and Its Relation to the Atmospheric Potential Gradient.” Wilson developed a device known as the Wilson electrometer to measure atmospheric electricity generated by earth’s surface charge. His work revealed the existence of a vertical electric field near the Earth’s surface, even in fair weather conditions. This fair-weather electric field is a part of the Earth’s global electric circuit.

1920s to present day:

Today the phenomenon of earth’s surface charge, atmospheric electricity, primary and secondary lightning ground currents, lightning transients are all well understood.  Secondary transient lightning ground currents that cause CSST failures have even been recorded live using high speed cameras.  That any conductive object coupled physically to the earth’s crust,  such as structural steel, water pipes, electrical raceways, grounding braid of coax telecom cables can and will pick up lightning ground currents is  well understood and an established electrical engineering fact. Protection from lightning strikes, secondary lightning transient currents, and surge protection for telecommunications equipment, cables and power transmission equipment is now an established global multi billion dollar industry.

SO WHY DOES CSST FAIL?

CSST fails because of its design and construction. The high voltage, high frequency RF lightning ground currents popping out of the ground in the video above also “pops” CSST with ease even if the CSST is installed miles away from a lightning strike. But why? Because lightning is a large area phenomenon but most importantly thin walled metal tubes are ideal high frequency lightning ground current conductors. Thin walled CSST is particularly effective in transmitting radio frequency (RF) range as predicted and confirmed by Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism and Gauss’ Law, commonly known as the skin effect. For those who are not electrical engineers, the image below appears to be hot water pipe coils pulled out from a water heater assembly. They are not hot water pipes!

The images are from a radio transmitting station in upstate New York. The coiled copper tubes are part of the RF amplifier system used to conduct high-voltage, high-frequency RF currents to the station tower broadcast antenna array. CSST is first and foremost an ideal RF current conductor that has been repurposed to transport natural gas inside your home since the late 1980s. Unfortunately for homeowners CSST is also electrically coupled to earth’s surface potential via a large area underground natural gas piping network. This vast network of underground gas piping buried in conductive soil will act as a large underground earth-ground potential collector antenna array picking up and transmitting lightning ground currents efficiently to CSST gas lines installed inside a home or building, causing catastrophic fires and gas leaks even if the lightning strike happens as far as 3 miles away.

CSST = TUBULAR CAPACITOR NATURAL GAS PIPE BOMB!

Unfortunately for homeowners, CSST has an insulative coating that allows earth’s electrostatic surface charge to build up prior to catastrophic failure just like a capacitor — except CSST is a tubular capacitor that transports natural gas INSIDE your home! Once CSST is installed in your home it effectively becomes a tubular capacitor, a natural gas pipe bomb. The CSST’s  inner stainless steel tube directly couples to earth ground potential  and becomes the ground electrode, an extension of the earth’s crust via a vast underground network of natural gas pipes buried in conductive soil. When a thundercloud appears over a neighborhood, the natural gas CSST pipe bomb is ARMED! All the unattached metal objects such as roofing nails, studs, metal roof etc will take on cloud potential or the live electrode.  During thunderstorms the earth’s fair-weather potential field (typically around 100 volts / meter) will exceed several thousand volts / meter. DETONATION: A lightning ground strike happens and the electrostatic charge generated by thunderclouds and the earth’s ground potential start to oscillate in the form lightning ground currents. These high voltage lightning ground currents will often exceed the 80KV dielectric breakdown voltage of the CSST’s yellow insulation jacket and then KABOOM!!!! You have a raging natural gas fire or even worse a pinhole natural gas leak that will cause a massive house explosion later on… hours or days after the event!

CSST HOME NETWORK = NATURAL GAS PIPE BOMB NETWORK! A DANGER TO NEIGHBORHOODS YET APPROVED BY ALL MAJOR INTERNATIONAL BUILDING AND EQUIPMENT CODES!

Unlike iron pipe which T’s off at every gas appliance, CSST installation requires a dedicated CSST line per appliance SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASES the length of CSST piping installed in any given building, thus increasing the CSST lightning fire risk in a home or building. CSST GAS LINE NETWORK = LARGE AREA TUBULAR CAPACITOR NATURAL GAS PIPE BOMB NETWORK! In the case of identical tract housing, the CSST tubular capacitor networks inside each individual home form a network of capacitors since they are all identical and all are connected in parallel electrically coupled to the earth’s crust with identical soil conductivity conditions. When lightning storms pass overhead, all of these CSST tubular capacitor networks will charge up. Multiple houses in the same neighborhood have gone up in flames, as you can see from this news report from Texas. Thus the most dangerous aspect of these CSST lightning induced fires is the fact that they occur in high frequency during lightning storms especially during hurricanes. In any high density neighborhood with high winds, a CSST lightning induced fire can rapidly spread to neighboring properties before firefighters can even arrive on the scene leaving no trace of the original cause of the fire. 

During hurricanes an entire neighborhood can burn down in a matter of hours so in this regard CSST installations pose a risk to not just the home it is installed in but the entire neighborhood as well. Yet curiously, CSST which is by physical design and construction an ideal RF conductor that plugs directly into a large buried network of gas piping was never tested for the effects of direct or indirect lightning ground currents prior to being approved for the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 54 – National Fuel Gas Code,  the  International Fuel Gas Code (IFGC), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA).  It should be noted that these same standards / code organizations are fully aware of the effects of lightning strikes on electronic equipment and indeed do have rigorous lightning testing and shielding requirements for virtually all electrical, telecommunications and other products / devices that electrically couple to earth-ground potential by design just like CSST. If a telecom or internet cable has poor or no shielding in violation of code regulations, you lose your internet connection, drop a call or at worse your modem or computer equipment may suffer damage. Yet, CSST which is by design an unshielded insulated RF lightning conductor cable that transports natural gas and can burn your house down is approved as safe and effective for installation in homes all across America’s infamous lightning alley!

INDUSTRY RESPONSE: CSST VS TOBACCO…A BLAST FROM THE PAST!

Unfortunately for CSST manufacturers, the laws of physics do not change over time just like the properties of nicotine and inhaled smoke, that do not change over time. When you plug in thin walled CSST RF conductors directly into the earth’s crust, turns out the CSST will charge up with earth’s surface potential and undergo dielectric failure, causing fires. As the lawsuits started to pile up,  the CSST industry responded just like the tobacco industry. The Tobacco industry’s cover-up of nicotine’s addictive properties went through 4 stages. Stage 1: Deny product is defective Stage 2: Offer ‘safer’ alternatives but deny defect. Stage 3: Craft a “new normal” by hiring paid thinkers; academics, lawyers, doctors and the press that exhorts the public to trust the tobacco industry’s science™. Stage 4: Finally admit guilt, but only after overwhelming multi-decade pile up of evidence of injury leading to a nationwide public settlement.

CSST industry Stage 1: Deny the claims that lightning currents damage CSST tubing as speculative, as folklore, as myth. In response to denial stage by the CSST industry, the public responded by attempting to ban CSST. In  2001 there was a nascent  attempt to ban CSST in California but the proposed law never made it into law. In 2008, there was an attempt to ban / limit the sale of CSST in the state of Massachusetts but again the ban never took effect.  You can find discussions on the CSST ban on public forums here, here and here. 

• The Frisco and Arlington Texas fire departments sought a ban on CSST.
• A technical committee for the National Fire Protection Association considered a ban on the installation of CSST in the 2014 edition of the National Fuel Gas Code.
• In May 2013, Pennsylvania state officials warned homeowners about the dangers of CSST.

STAGE 1: DENIAL THE BRENNAN TEEL CASE STUDY:

Lubbock, Texas stands out when it comes to CSST industry employing big tobacco tactics.  Everything is big in Texas, including CSST fires! Texas is home to some of the world’s largest tract housing projects,   a network of natural gas powered suburban homes with CSST all identical to one another. As the economy of Texas grew in the 90s and 2000s, so too did its tract homes with 100 to 250+ feet of CSST natural gas piping network in each home…and where CSST is installed lightning fires follow!  In 2012, a young Texas man, Brennen Teel was burned alive as a result of a CSST pinhole leak caused by a lightning strike nearby.  Natural gas from the CSST pinhole leak  filled the attic space resulting in an explosion killing Brennan Teel who was inside the home at the time. 

It did not take long for the Lubbock fire department to find the source of the fire that caused young Mr. Brennen Teel’s death: lightning ground current damaged CSST!  The  Lubbock fire marshal supported calls for a CSST ban!

In 2014, to counter the negative publicity following Brennen Teel’s death, Rick Perry, then governor of Texas issued a CSST safety day proclamation to promote the ‘safe’ installation of CSST. Rick Perry’s CSST safety day notwithstanding, the Lubbock city council followed through and did ban CSST but the ban lasted only for a short while starting 2016. The CSST industry response was predictable. In 2018  Lubbock was sued in Federal court by Omega Flex  for its CSST ban. The CSST industry then lobbied the Texas state legislature to pass a law banning cities like Lubbock from banning CSST via ordinances or any other means as they violated the citizens’ right to exercise free choice to install natural gas tubular capacitor CSST pipe bombs and House Bill 2439 became the law in the state of Texas in 2019. The bill amends the Texas Government Code to say local municipalities cannot adopt an ordinance that prohibits or limits the use of a building product or material in the construction or renovation of a residential or commercial building if the building product or material is approved for use by a national model code.  Brennen Teel’s parents had  to continue on from this tragedy, their efforts overturned in a short span of three years.

Despite the overwhelming PHYSICAL evidence against CSST, 200+ years of established electrostatic science starting with Benjamin Franklin, the laws of electromagnetism, Gauss’s Law, the skin effect, properties of lightning RF ground currents and thin walled tubular RF conductors, the CSST natural gas piping industry, just like the tobacco industry in the 1950s went about creating a parallel reality where none of the established laws of electromagnetism or consumer safety / product liability applies to them and their product alone! The CSST industry has so far gotten lawsuits dismissed over a plethora of absolutely absurd reasons such as ‘Common Sense’,  ‘legal theory scenario’, ‘frivolous claim with no basis’, ‘too speculative’ etc., just to mention a few.  CSST industry has also spawned specialty law professionals that defend the CSST industry claims just like big tobacco and its army of legal professionals.

Looking back, big tobacco passed on all the health care costs of smoking addiction to all medical insurance policy holders smokers and non-smokers alike. Likewise, the CSST industry continues to this day to pass on the cost of CSST related fires and litigation to all home insurance policy holders. So regardless of whether you have an all electric home or a natural gas home with iron pipe without any CSST installed, you are still paying for the CSST fires, lawsuit litigation, subrogation and litigation settlement payouts via increased insurance premiums.

Stage 2: INTRODUCE “SAFER ARC RESISTANT” CSST PRODUCTS

The tobacco industry  had doctors of the day telling pregnant women to  ‘trust the science’ denying any neurotoxic properties of nicotine  while at the same time   exploiting the science of the neurotoxic properties of nicotine to develop a novel class of pesticides for the agricultural industry . Amazingly  the same parallel exists in the CSST industry. On the one hand, the CSST industry has successfully deflected lawsuit after lawsuit denying the science of lightning ground currents causing catastrophic CSST dielectric failure, yet using the same science  to come up with their own version of ‘lightning proof’ or ‘arc resistant’ CSST. Which begs the question, if CSST lightning induced fires are not a serious  risk and an extremely rare occurrence, why go through the effort of creating new ‘arc resistant’ CSST alternatives? Why bring out new CSST products that fixes the flaw in the original classic yellow CSST design if the original design  is not defective and has no known flaws?

The poster you see above is not a parody but a real ad for Omegaflex, a CSST manufacturer. Omegaflex transitioned  from selling the classic yellow CSST sold under the TracPipe brand to selling Counterstrike starting in 2004, a black semi conductive rubber jacket that is supposedly arc resistant and prevents the formation of pinhole leaks. Omegaflex no longer sells yellow CSST.

OMEGAFLEX COUNTER STRIKE: IS IT SAFE AND EFFECTIVE?

COUNTERSTRIKE CRITICAL DESIGN FLAW:

Classic yellow CSST jacket has a dielectric breakdown voltage of 60–80 kV.  This protects the thin walled yellow CSST from household AC grid mains ground fault currents.   However Counterstrike’s  “semi-conductive” rubber jacket faraday cage is highly vulnerable to ground fault currents from 120V/ 220V AC grid mains in tests funded by The National Association of State Fire Marshals and this is a much more serious  fire risk to any home.

By trying to solve the problem of lightning ground currents, Omegaflex’s Counterstrike just created an additional new 120/220V AC mains fire risk problem for the consumer; effectively replacing one fire risk with another fire risk as pointed out by the Brennen Teel Foundation. 

GASTITE FLASHSHIELD: IS IT SAFE AND EFFECTIVE?

GASTITE introduced Flashshield in 2010, 6 years after OmegaFlex’s Counterstrike.  Flashshield just like counterstrike has an integrated Faraday cage, an aluminum mesh layer followed by an insulating black outer jacket.  According to GASTITE, FLASHSHIELD is similar to  fuel lines found on board aircraft  and by their own marketing brochure is based on aerospace industry solutions (see image below).

FLASHSHIELD CRITICAL DESIGN FLAWS:

1. It’s a bad idea to integrate any electrically conductive layer designed to bear electrical burdens (lightning or AC fault currents) physically into a flexible fuel gas hose that transports explosive combustible gases  inside your home unless there is a physical need as in aircraft or high performance automotive racing engines.
2. Is your house an aircraft?  Does your home fly at 20,000 ft, physically decoupled from the earth’s crust?
3. Does your house have an external structural faraday cage made of metal / metallized composite skin like an aircraft?

An aircraft’s fuel hose is not physically coupled to the earth’s crust and  the primary protection for an aircraft  against lighting strikes and the fuel and hydraulic lines enclosed within it, is the aircraft’s aluminum metal skin that acts as an all encompassing structural Faraday cage that shields the entire aircraft. Aircraft fuel lines have integrated Faraday cages to protect and prevent electrostatic build up and sparking that may happen when the aircraft flies through ionized atmospheric cloud particles that come into contact with engine components, NOT TO PROTECT AGAINST DIRECT GROUND TO CLOUD LIGHTNING CURRENTS…THAT IS THE JOB OF THE AIRCRAFT’S ALUMINUM SKIN!

ENHANCED TUBULAR CAPACITOR EFFECT: A CSST physically couples to earth-ground potential.  By integrating the conductive aluminum mesh layer into the CSST, FLASHSHIELD does not eliminate the tubular dielectric effect, instead transfers the electrical burden of lightning ground currents to the aluminum mesh layer. While this may reduce the risk of pinhole leaks, the earth’s vertical potential gradient and ensuing lightning ground currents will still energize FLASHSHIELD’s  aluminum mesh layer and the dielectric failure will be much more energetic and explosive than plain yellow CSST.  FLASHSHIELD  by design  is now a  multi layered  RF conductor that can efficiently pick up lightning ground currents and transport the current throughout the length of the CSST similar to a TV coaxial cable.   A TV coaxial cable transports signals so if it burns or is damaged by higher than rated lightning currents, it is a matter of replacing the cable, maybe your TV / modem and surge protector. GASTITE’s FLASHSHIELD transports natural gas. If it fails due to excess lightning currents your house burns down.

CRITICAL DESIGN FLAW: MAINTAINING GROUND POTENTIAL CONTINUITY REQUIRES SPECIAL FITTINGS!

To maintain ground potential continuity throughout the length of the CSST, FLASHSHIELD also requires custom fittings  similar to telecommunication TV coaxial cable interlinks.   If you incorrectly install the coaxial cable and do not ground the outer ground mesh layer, your signal will be noisy and the quality of your internet, TV or voice communications will drop. Not much of a consequence. If FLASHSHIELD custom fittings are not installed properly and proper electrical ground continuity is not maintained though out the length of the FLASHSHIELD CSST, then FLASHSHIELD becomes a multi electrode tubular capacitor, with twice the electrostatic energy storage capacity per length of CSST as opposed to single layered classic yellow CSST.

CRITICAL DESIGN FLAW: GALVANIC CORROSION

Real world Forensic Engineering Inc based in Lubbock carried out extensive studies as to determine the ability of Gastite’s FlashShield CSST to meet the Lubbock City Code C-1027  by subjecting FLASHSHIELD  to real-world installation scenarios. CSST samples were subjected to electrical tests simulating delivery of lightning energy in addition to 1) pull-test through stud holes, 2) bending of CSST to within manufacturer’s minimum bend radius specification, and 3) exposure to the required ASTM B117-11, 96-hour salt spray test.

The requirement of specialized electrically conductive fittings will result in galvanic corrosion over time in coastal regions like Florida or high humidity moisture rich atmospheric conditions like coastal Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and The Carolinas for example. The problem is Flashshield is designed just like a coaxial cable which do need to be replaced over time because of corrosion in the fittings. A bad coaxial cable leads to failed internet connections, a badly corroded Flashshield fitting will lead to gas leaks.

By designing Counterstrike and Flashshield, CSST manufacturers openly admit to two facts from a liability perspective:

1. The CSST industry clearly understands that their product is defective because of the physical property of classic yellow CSST to pick up and conduct RF lightning ground currents and this causes catastrophic dielectric failure of the thin walled stainless steel layer and its outer insulation layer leading to leaks and fires.
2. The CSST industry also clearly understands that the Faraday cage is the solution to the physics of the defect that causes CSST lighting ground current failure. Both Omegaflex and Gastite have come up with their own versions of the Faraday cage solution that are neither SAFE nor EFFECTIVE.

Conclusion: All CSSTs on the market today are EFFECTIVE at transporting natural gas but are not 100% SAFE even though they should be! ‘Lightning Proof’ or ‘arc resistant’ CSSTs are needlessly more expensive with clear unacceptable safety tradeoffs.

STAGE 3: INVENT ‘NEW NORMAL’ SCIENCE™ – THE CULT OF CSST ‘BONDING’!

What about the millions of home owners with classic yellow CSST already installed and potential new home owners since yellow CSST continues to be sold to the general public to this day? It is a guaranteed fact that all CSST installs including ‘arc resistant’ CSST, are potential source of fires for years to come. To ease the minds of these home owners as well as insurance companies, the CSST industry came up  with “BONDING”, a supposedly simple solution that makes classic yellow CSST ‘slightly more safe’ from the effects of lightning strikes and ground currents.

WHAT IS THE ICC? “The International Code Council is the largest international association of building safety professionals. The Code Council is the trusted source of model codes and standards that establish the baseline for building safety globally and create a level playing field for builders and manufacturers.”

CSST bonding according to International Code Council:

1. The permanent bonding of non-arc-resistant (yellow) CSST piping systems directly to the grounding electrode system of the structure in which the CSST is installed serves to lower the voltage build-up on the CSST caused by unintentional energizing from outside sources such as lightning strikes.

Let’s analyze the statement above on bonding CSST by the ICC.  Bonding essentially means electrically coupling the CSST’s inner metal tube that transports natural gas to the AC mains ground electrode system of the structure housing the CSST. This is the common ground for all appliances, equipment and the AC mains grid servicing the structure.

2. The bonding helps achieve an equipotential state between the CSST and other similarly bonded metallic systems (such as the water piping, structural steel, electrical raceways and coax cable). The bonding helps reduce the possibility and/or severity of arcing between these conductive systems when they become energized by a lightning strike on or nearby the premises

The above statement is not just bad science; it is highly dangerous. The problem is that CSST coupled to earth-ground potential will arc to ungrounded metal objects like roofing nails or simply ionized air that surrounds the CSST during a thunderstorm. To understand how dangerous the ICC bonding mandate is, take a look at the picture below.

A coaxial cable is  a standard TV / internet cable. The purpose of the braided shield grounding strap layer is to protect the center conductor from high frequency lightning ground currents and AC fault currents. The braided shield layer is essentially a Faraday cage that is electrically connected to common ground of the AC mains servicing the structure so all electrical burdens are transmitted to the shield layer. The foil shield is another layer of protection against high frequency RF (radio frequency) radiation generated by electrical noise including but not limited to lightning strikes and secondary lightning ground currents. The center conductor remains un-energized while the main braided shielding layer experiences ground potential rise and bears the burden of surge currents during lightning strikes as it is electrically bonded to earth-ground (common ground) and AC fault currents from faulty ground connections.

Electrical raceways are enclosed metallic conduits resembling a pipe or duct that forms a physical pathway for electrical wiring.  Raceways protect wires and cables from electrical burdens including but not limited to lightning ground current surges, AC ground fault currents and RF interference in addition to heat, humidity, corrosion, water intrusion and general physical threats. Similar to the coaxial cable’s Faraday shielding layer, raceways are also  grounded to common earth-ground reference potential of the structure housing the equipment and the raceway experiences ground potential rise and surge currents during lightning strikes, thus protecting the cables and wires housed within.

ICC BONDING CODE = ARMING YOUR HOME TUBULAR CAPACITOR CSST PIPE BOMB NETWORK!

Comparing the CSST to the coaxial cable, the inner thin walled stainless steel gas transport layer of the CSST is equivalent to the inner most signal carrying wire of the coaxial cable. This inner gas transport layer of the CSST is the one that needs protection or rather shielding from  high frequency lightning ground currents.  Yet the CSST industry with the stamp of approval from the International Code Council and incorporated into building codes nationwide, recommends the exact opposite…that directly coupling the CSST’s inner most stainless steel gas transport layer, electrically to earth-ground potential will protect the CSST from lightning ground current surges! This is highly dangerous because it increases the risk of CSST fires and does not lower it!

Bonding as recommended by the CSST industry /  ICC building codes effectively arms the tubular capacitor CSST network in your home transforming the CSST lines into a natural gas pipe bomb network with live earth-ground potential.  The same lightning ground currents that flow through the outer coaxial Faraday braided shielding layer, electrical raceways and structural metal of the building will also flow through the inner stainless steel gas transport layer of the CSST. The detonation event will be a lightning strike between cloud potential and earth potential and this lightning strike does not even have to be nearby by because the CSST is now electrically coupled with earth-ground potential via the large area AC grid grounding network.   Bonding and grounding  CSST in accordance with ICC building codes thus guarantees  CSST pinhole leaks, gas line ruptures and catastrophic fires, even if the lightning strike happens as far as 3 miles away!  

THE CULT OF CSST:

It is a well known fact that in the absence of any tall metallic structures or trees any pointy object above ground level such as animals, birds and even humans become lighting conductors with often fatal ‘mass death’ consequences.  This phenomenon is well known and these mass deaths occur because of secondary lightning streamers reaching skywards energizing all pointy objects on the surface level of the earth’s crust.

A few recent mass lightning strike events Lightning strike kills Colorado cattle rancher and 34 of his herd, Lightning strike kills dozens of cows in Cullman County, Lightning strike kills 27 cows in freak accident, More than 100 people killed during lightning strikes in India. This phenomenon is well understood by the electronics and telecommunications industry and a multi billion dollar shielding and lightning protection industry has evolved since the 1830s developing rigorous international codes and regulations built around evidence based testing and engineering based on the works of Benjamin Franklin, Friedrich Gauss, Michael Faraday and James Maxwell et al.

Most TVs, desktop PCs and modems last a life time without suffering from lightning surge damage, but we still use surge protectors and shielding techniques to protect electronic equipment and cables even if we personally have never experienced such an event. A home is much bigger and way more expensive than a TV and CSST is way more efficient at picking up and transmitting RF lightning ground currents compared to AC grid supply wires and CSST also happens to transport pressurized combustible natural gas inside homes and commercial buildings! One would think the code regulations would be even more SCIENTIFICALLY rigorous for multi million dollar homes compared to electronics and telecommunications equipment worth less than a $1000. Yet when it comes to CSST, the exact opposite ‘science™’ has become mandated into building codes.

ICC CODE MANDATES DANGEROUS BONDING: The International Code Council (ICC) develops a family of codes, including the International Building Code (IBC), International Residential Code (IRC), and others, which are often adopted together or individually by states. Many US states adopt the International Code Council (ICC) building codes, either directly or with minor amendments, to ensure consistent and safe construction standards. In all US states that follow the International Fuel Gas Code (IFGC) and International Residential Code (IRC), bonding is mandatory by law: According to the ICC “All CSST gas piping systems must be bonded, regardless of whether the system includes only CSST or other piping materials (steel pipe or copper pipe/tubing) in combination with CSST.  Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing (CSST) gas piping systems must be bonded to the electrical service grounding electrode system, typically using a 6 AWG copper wire or equivalent to protect against lightning damage.”

In California, the Trust the Science™ state, the CSST industry’s ‘new normal’ science™ has made its way into state law. The purpose of this law is for home inspectors to note that CSST needs to be bonded to prevent lightning strikes every time they inspect a home. A new religion and belief system complete with its own rites and rituals mandated and incorporated into law by the state of California — but for a specific reason.

CULT OF CSST BONDING: DAMNED IF YOU DO! DAMNED IF YOU DON’T….A.K.A BOND IT OR BEND OVER!

It turns out that, like all medieval religions, or any form of autocratic theocracy, the real purpose of this ritual is money! Failure to comply with bonding mandates is followed by punitive enforcement that affects everyone from plumbers and contractors to home inspectors and electricians. The sole purpose of the cult of CSST bonding ‘science’ is to avoid or limit liability payouts and non-compliance is met with punitive legal enforcement. If you are a home inspector and the home you inspected has CSST lines, then you can be liable for CSST fire damage because you did not include the blurb about bonding and grounding as required by state code or law as in the case of California. Take the case of this home inspector from Texas who was sued for CSST fire damage by the CSST manufacturer of the defective product Ward Manufacturing for not including the state mandated words on bonding CSST in his inspection report! To rub salt on the wound, if you are a hard working plumber CSST manufacturers will sue you for the failure of their defective product if you fail to follow CSST bonding mandates! In the world of plumbing adhering to the CSST industry’s new religious belief mandates is called ‘bond it or bendover’! Not even tobacco companies were this brazen when it came to propagating ‘new normal science™’ like the CSST industry has been. No tobacco company ever promoted science that said directly shooting up nicotine into your veins would save you from addiction and smoking related illnesses. The CSST industry’s bonding ‘science™’ transforms your home CSST network into electrically armed tubular capacitor natural gas pipe bomb network, all for your own safety!

USEFUL LIFE FOR USEFUL IDIOTS A.K.A AMERICAN HOME OWNERS: The CSST industry’s complete power over the American public to craft a ‘new normal’ thinking in terms of legal liability, consumer safety and understanding and interpretation of the fundamental laws of physics and physical properties of the earth’s surface charge can be showcased in one lawsuit. Take the case of home owner Robert Paterson of Old Lyme Connecticut. May 2018, a lightning strike nearby caused a CSST fire in the basement of Paterson’s home which was confirmed by the local fire department. It was undisputed that the lightning strike had energized the CSST line, resulting in arcing that caused the hole and subsequent fire. State Farm Fire and Casualty, the property insurer for the home, sued Omega Flex, the manufacturer of the CSST used in the home. Omega Flex denied the allegations that CSST was defective, claimed the fire only happened because the CSST was not properly bonded and grounded and then got the court to dismiss the case because the CSST installed was older than 10 years and past its 10-year statute of repose. Meaning in Connecticut, a product liability suit must be brought within 10 years of the date of manufacture thus limiting the amount of time CSST homeowners and insurance companies can sue CSST manufacturers for CSST failures.

THE SIDE ENTRY SHIELDING JACKET: THE RETROFIT SOLUTION THAT DOES NOT EXIST!

Time and time again, the CSST industry and paid engineering experts hired by the CSST industry have claimed no solution exists to make already installed yellow CSST 100% safe from lightning ground currents. GASTITE claims there is no retrofit solution for all the classic yellow CSST that GASTITE already sold to homeowners. If you want ‘lightning protection’ you must buy GASTITE’s patented aerospace industry inspired FLASHSHIELD CSST.   GASTITE proudly mention in their marketing materials that their FLASHSHIELD CSST “utilizes advanced AEROSPACE SHIELD TECHNOLOGY” but what they completely choose to ignore and avoid is the fact that the aerospace industry also uses SIDE ENTRY RETROFIT SHIELDING ‘FARADAY CAGE’ JACKETS AND SLEEVES!

The oil and natural gas industry is well aware of lightning strikes and the dangers it poses to pipelines above and underground. There are numerous corporations such as ABB, DEHN, and others that provide lightning protection products for large refineries for above and underground pipeline infrastructure. However, the natural gas industry clearly does not believe in lightning shielding protection for downstream consumers of their product. Imagine a world where lightning protection exists only for manufacturers of electronics, power generation companies and telecommunications satellite broadcast towers but no industry exists for protecting electronic equipment in individual homes from lightning ground surge currents.

MEET POLYETHYLENE (PE) TUBING: CSST’S UNDERGROUND COUSIN!

Take the case of POLYETHYLENE tubing or PE underground gas tubing.  PE gas tubing is used in homes; however, its main use is as UNDERGROUND gas mains supply lines that service individual homes in a neighborhood and just like CSST, PE tubing is vulnerable to lightning ground currents when buried underground.

In the youtube video above, note the yellow PE underground gas tubing.  A quick search of YouTube reveals that underground PE gas mains line rupturing from lightning strike ground currents is an all-too-common event. A few recent examples:

• A buried gas line near the Harrison-Taylor county in Indiana was struck by lightning sparking a fire.
• A lightning strike causes a fire and gas mains leak in the area of 86th and Townsend in Milwaukee.
• Lightning strike causes a buried gas mains leak in Lexington.
• Lightning strikes gas line in Virginia Beach, causing leak.
• Lightning strikes buried gas line in Pierce Township, Ohio.
• Lightning strike ruptures buried gas line triggering natural gas fire in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

We find the same lightning ground current phenomenon that causes CSST to rupture above ground, also causes PE (polyethylene) tubing to rupture underground.   Once a PE gas mains ruptures after a lightning strike, the local energy company dispatches emergency crews to turn off the gas mains to the entire neighborhood and replace the damaged section of the underground gas mains PE tubing. Typically homeowners nearby have to evacuate until the gas mains leak is stopped. Ultimately the total cost of PE (polyethylene) tubing gas mains lightning failure is passed on to homeowners via increases in their gas bill and insurance corporations will simply raise the premium because ‘the risk’ of the entire neighborhood blowing up just went up! Unironically, after all these costs are paid by homeowners, the new section of replaced PE tubing poses the exact same risk and danger of massive neighborhood fires / gas leaks / explosions from lightning ground currents as before! Money changes hands but nothing really changes just like the case of CSST fires.

‘SIDE-ENTRY RETROFIT SHIELDING JACKET’, THE DARK LORD OF LIABILITY THE CSST INDUSTRY DARE NOT NAME!

Take the 2017 paper titled Electric Arc Holes in Corrugated Stainless Steel Tubing  by MIT engineers Richard H. Taylor, Harold R. Larson & Thomas W. Eagar published in the journal Fire Technology as an example. The MIT research paper does not mention the word shielding once in their paper nor do the authors offer any solution to eliminating the CSST vulnerability to lightning ground currents. The paper is an elaborate exercise demonstrating the fact the dielectric failure of CSST tubing under high voltage conditions. The irony is the fact that the MIT materials science lab used to test the CSST would have had copious lengths of shielding jackets to protect sensor / data cables from the lab generated high voltage simulated lightning strikes.

WHY THE ‘RETROFIT SHIELDING OPTION’ CANNOT BE NAMED: The permanent solution for underground PE lightning fires is the same as the permanent solution for above ground CSST fires…a side entry flexible Faraday cage lightning shielding jacket solution for natural gas tubing! A retrofit side entry shielding jacket solution is anathema to the CSST industry because it permanently fixes the unshielded dielectric failure effect of CSST and underground PE due to lightning ground currents making CSST and underground PE gas tubing 100% safe. A retrofit solution simply corrects the original defect thus by extension, consumer product liability laws in most states will require the CSST manufacturers to provide for or compensate in whole or in part, the cost of retrofit shielding, unshielded CSST gas lines.

On the other hand if there is no retrofit solution that can fix CSST lightning ground current failure, then the only option as a home owner is to replace yellow CSST with more expensive ‘arc resistant’ alternatives. This creates a captive market and ensures profitability for CSST companies while simultaneously avoiding liability payouts to fix the original defect. Take the case of  Joshua Laird and Nathan Flynn — both firefighters from Howard County Maryland who died fighting CSST related fires. The CSST industry used their deaths to create a captive market for ‘arc -resistant’ CSST instead of providing a retrofit side entry shielding jacket solution. Starting 2022, the state of Maryland required the use of arc-resistant CSST in the construction of a new gas piping system, the replacement of an existing gas line or renovation of half a property.

HOW DOES SCIENCE DIE? When corporations bear false witness to obvious consequences of the laws of physics and alter the perception of reality by funding ‘new normal’ science™, when lawyers refuse to question ‘new normal’ science™, when International code regulators agree with the ‘new normal’ science™ as interpreted by corporations and reinforce the ‘new normal’ science™ with dangerous code mandates, when State Law Makers and local city/county building code regulators accept the ‘new normal’ science™ without question and enforce ‘new normal’ code mandates with legal and monetary penalties and when academic institutions function only as paid thinkers limiting critical analysis and problem solving skills to ‘scope’ and ‘funding’, that is when basic science dies. The only option then for the home owner, is America’s infamous free-market of ideas and independent small business to solve artificial ‘unsolvable’ problems, created on purpose by big business.

PYROTHOR: THE WORLD’S FIRST AND ONLY SIDE ENTRY RETROFIT CSST LIGHTNING SHIELDING SLEEVE:

PyroThor is the  world’s first and only custom-designed, patent-pending, side-entry CSST lightning shielding jacket that retrofits all CSST types.  The shielding jacket is made from aluminized fiberglass material, a high-temperature, fire-resistant material that has been used for decades as lightning shielding mats for rooftop satellite equipment, as shielding jackets for fuel lines in high performance racing engines and as high temperature welding aprons that can handle virtually  all corrosive toxic household chemicals with a multi decade life span.

Unlike Gastite which requires special fittings to maintain continuity, PYROTHOR simplifies retrofitting lightning shielding all existing CSSTs with its unique innovative FLEX-SHUNT system: one of a kind, two component flexible lightning shunt sleeve comprising of a PICKUP JACKET and a PROPAGATION JACKET. The PICKUP jacket which covers the iron pipe to CSST or gas manifold to CSST transition ‘picks up’ lightning ground current transients and transmits it to the PROPAGATION JACKET that covers the remaining entire length of the CSST in sections before terminating at the appliance.  Shielding continuity is maintained by means of wide conductive interlink cuffs at the end of each section of the propagation jacket. Closure is side-entry Velcro, which makes it fast and easy for any qualified plumber to install without having to remove the CSST unless absolutely necessary.

With PYROTHOR, all CSST types can be shielded because it’s a retrofit side-entry solution that fits any type of CSST already installed in homes or businesses.  In case of a conventional fire, the high temperature shielding jacket acts as fire retardant sleeve protecting CSST gas lines from fire or high temperature events  giving the home owner the crucial extra time for first responders to arrive or evacuate the building before the gas lines ignite turning the home into a roaring furnace. 

THE FUTURE OF  RETROFIT LIGHTNING SHIELDING JACKETS AND THE CSST INDUSTRY:

From an economic point of view, a quick retrofit side-entry jacket that permanently protects CSST from lightning ground currents and eliminates CSST fires making CSST 100% SAFE has only upsides for home owners, CSST industry and insurance corporations.  

• Blue collar economic boom: As of 2012 over a billion feet of unshielded classic yellow CSST has been installed in the USA alone = massive long term CSST fire risk = massive CSST shielding demand = multi-decade plumbing contractor jobs = a mini economic boom for blue collar America in high density lightning alley states stretching all the way from New York to Texas and the Florida panhandle in the south.
• New demand for classic yellow CSST:  After-market shielding jackets promise a new source of revenue for the CSST industry since it makes classic yellow CSST 100% safe! Most classic yellow CSST’s installed in the 90s are ending their useful lifespans which means many homes with CSST may need to be repiped anyways.
• Insurance companies save money by permanently eliminating CSST fire risk and all costs associated with CSST fires including but not limited to CSST fire insurance investigation, litigation and subrogation  payouts to  fire injury victims, home owners and lawyers.

However  if the past is our only guide to the future, then hyper-litigation similar to tobacco or asbestos is the only way to bring about meaningful change, increase consumer awareness and force law makers to act in the interests of home owners as opposed to the bottom lines of big business.  In the case of the CSST lightning failure defect, the CSST industry has ossified all its bad ideas from poor product design to bonding and grounding ‘science™’ into international building codes via the International Code Council.  Once codified by the ICC, it is as good as written in stone and only litigation and legislative action will force any meaningful change. Take, for example, faulty wired glass code and despite the severe injuries it has caused, it is likely to remain in buildings for decades.

To date not a single  defective product lawsuit  representing CSST victims has been filed that demands CSST companies provide plaintiffs a retrofit lightning shielding jacket, a solution that has been around since the 1960s and used extensively in aviation and telecommunications industries! For the law firms and attorneys that make this first legal breakthrough, it truly may be the irony of ironies to have to argue and re-prove the fundamental laws of electromagnetism, the property of RF currents and thin walled metal tubes and retrofit Faraday cage shielding techniques to shield lightning RF currents in the front of a US Court, given the fact the United States pioneered electricity, aviation and telecommunications and is home to some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated lightning shielding companies.

IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE…

To illustrate the case against CSST, consider the following hypothetical ‘real world’ example: Imagine a world where hard hat helmets exist for every industry, transportation, construction, motor sports etc., except for the NFL that has created a ‘new normal’ around the perception of helmet safety. NFL players are given cardboard helmets and everybody, the team owners, doctors, legal professionals and university academics all agree that there is no other way to protect head injuries other than using cardboard helmets because no other solution exists. To top it all off, the NFL hires experts that come up with a ‘lucky rabbit foot mandate’ that according to the experts’ own research, a lucky rabbit’s foot ‘definitely’ ‘somewhat’ lowers the risk of head injury as long as the NFL player wears the lucky rabbit foot during the game. If he doesn’t follow the mandate, its the player’s fault his cardboard helmet did not work and is denied compensation for head injuries.

The bottom line: As of today if you are a home owner with any type of CSST, classic yellow CSST or ‘lightning proof’ CSST, the only thing that is preventing your home from a catastrophic lightning ground current / AC grid fault current induced CSST gas leak or fire is sheer good luck! If you truly value your home and peace of mind and don’t wish to be a victim of CSST fires, consider the possibility of retrofit shielding your CSST gas lines.  Do not become a victim like Caryn McMahon of Maryland. Shield your CSST lines with a side-entry jacket now and protect your home and loved ones before its too late!

Thus we come to the end of the twisted and convoluted tale of CSST and lightning fires.  Transforming an old normal to a new normal in order to protect the bottom lines of big corporations by manipulating the American public to accept defective dangerous products in order to avoid liability payouts is just another day in America!  The CSST industry’s defective product cover up  is just another chapter in America’s long history of defective product cover ups and the sad reality is that it is not an anomaly but rather the norm!

But surely if that is the norm, then what’s the next ‘new normal’ being rolled out to ‘protect’ the American public?