Amprobe GSD600 Gas Leak Detector

The object is to lead you to or find the place of the leak. No leak is OK in a home, As you get closer the PPM goes up. It may not even register until 2" away from a leak. That simple. Instructions are simple and easy to follow. For joints where a leak is detected, usually the next step is to spray or brush on liquid leak detector solution and note the speed and size of the bubbles. Gas companies employees sometime use such a detector, sometime they just use the solution. All you do to uses this is press ON and wait for it to calibrate which lights up the OK LED and beeps. It comes with a really great case. One leak I found was in my mother's basement. We did not smell a thing but I found a pipe joint that was leaking. Since it was on the Gas company piping, they came a fixed it in less than an hour. Later I found other leaks in our relative's houses at joints and at the shutoff valve. This is a really great device to have. It lets you tell the whomever where the leak is so work can be started right away. And realize there can always be more than one leak. The only thing that could be improved is that the two screws that hold the battery case closed are easy to loose since they just fall off when removed instead of being locked to the plastic door. Uses 4 AA batteries.

This detector did exactly what I needed it to do: find gas leaks in the pipes in my basement supplying natural gas to my furnace and water heater. I called Amprobe to ask them if this would work for me, but no one was able to confirm what the contents of "natural gas" are , so no one could tell me if this would work or not. Doing my own research, I came across this blurb at http://energy.wilkes.edu/pages/148.asp "Natural gas is a mixture of small organic molecules that are all gasses at normal temperatures. Methane is the most abundant constituent of natural gas, while ethane, propane, and helium are also present. Natural gas also includes trace amounts of other organic gases." Since this product is described as being able to detect methane and propane, I went ahead and bought it. It worked perfectly for me. I could detect small leaks (40-80ppm) and big leaks (off the scale at over 640ppm). The only problem with this purchase is that the four AA batteries that came in the package were dead on arrival, and I had to supply my own batteries. No big deal. That, and when you open the handy plastic carrying case for the detector, it really stinks like some awful plastic/petroleum product smell. The case now lives out in my workshop; the detector lives inside the house with me.

A small gas leak in a large building can be painfully hard to find. We spent a ton of time sniffing around and using bubbles on random connections with no success. This tool led me right to the problem in just a few minutes. First, note that this tool will calibrate itself automatically every time you turn it on; so I was always turning it on while outside in open air to get a good baseline. Then, I noticed how cool this tool is right away. I walked into the building and the GSD600 immediately detected gas to its first indicator level (there's an escalated set of indicators and sounds as it senses gases more intensely). It detected this gas in a building where I could not smell anything at all; and the gas had been shut off at the meter for about 24 hours! I stepped back outside and the indication cleared ..stepped back inside and it registered one light. Very nice. I then turned the gas on, and proceeded to wander around different areas poking the sensor into corners and closets, etc. Methane (Natural Gas) rises, so I was checking along ceilings and high areas that may trap gases. I went to the basement and poked the sensor into each joist cavity for a few seconds. Eventually I found a space that lit the sensor up like a Christmas tree and it didn't take long to follow it to the source; a small leak in a poorly installed fitting. Thank you!

Wanted to use the probe for new installation and repair work on natural gas lines to appliances. It worked good for about three tries, but after a few months never again. Now it will not move from batt to ready (ready is the state to detect gas). Basically it is now a paperweight. 150 bucks wasted.

After 2 days messing with a gas line and using this detector I have to say it's a disappointment. I have old existing gas lines and couldn't find the source of a 10 lb. air pressure test leak. I refilled the line with gas, and used the gsd600. It was accurate at finding a leak at my meter, but missed other leaks or gave me false readings. How do I know? The gas company came by to fix the meter issue and let me use their $3000 leak detector, so I was able to substantiate the missed and false readings the gsd600 gave me. These missed and false readings were driving me crazy in trying to diagnose the problem. Its not that it can't work--it does, but only in certain situations, which can be maddening when assuming it works all the time. The gas company person also showed me how the soap and water method can detect even the smallest leaks (provided you have access), which can confirm what the meter says. In my instance, the leak was at old joints (not at the appliance valves, as you might expect). My discovery was that the air pressure test (10-15 lbs) is significantly higher in poundage so that old joints show a significant leak using this test, but not when using the much lower pressure of normal natural gas. It took the expensive meter to find them. I hope others can benefit from my few days of plumbing purgatory. BTW, methane is one of the main components of natural gas (see gas co. website), so this detector should be suitable. Why Amprobe doesn't say natural gas is a mystery.

It is work