The Real Cost of False Leak Calls

When it comes to odorization, one of the most common mistakes we see is over-odorization. Some contractors think adding a little extra odorant “just to be safe” is harmless. In reality, that habit creates one of the most expensive and damaging problems an operator can face: false leak calls.

What Happens When the Public Smells Too Much

Odorant is powerful. It is designed to be noticed at trace levels, which means even slight over-injection is immediately obvious to the public. When that happens, neighbors do exactly what they should do: they call 911. Fire departments respond, utility crews mobilize, and the job that was supposed to be routine suddenly turns into an incident.

The costs stack up quickly. Emergency services are tied up for hours. Operators are pulled into investigations. Projects get delayed. The public begins to question whether the system is safe at all. And beyond the disruption, there is a financial burden. Fire departments often bill for emergency responses, and state or federal enforcement agencies can issue penalties and fines for incidents tied to odorization errors. What looks like a harmless decision to “add a little more” becomes a very costly mistake.

Why “More Odorant” Is Not Safer

We understand why contractors fall into this trap. Odorization is too often treated like painting a wall: if you are not sure, put on another coat. But odorant does not work that way. Too much can create just as many problems as too little. Instead of increasing safety, it creates panic, wastes product, and damages trust.

How We Prevent It

At Pipeline Conditioning, we never guess at injection rates. Before we arrive on site, we run calculations based on flow, pressure, pipe diameter, and line length. Once we are on location, we back those numbers up with real-time verification. Our systems inject odorant precisely and proportional to flow, and these levels are continuously monitored and manipulated through the project.

This approach ensures the public smells exactly what they should: enough to keep them safe, but never so much that they mistake a well-conditioned system for a dangerous leak.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

We have been called in after other vendors left projects over-odorized. Operators dealt with hundreds of false leak calls, local news coverage, and frustrated regulators who wanted answers. By the time we arrived, the damage to public trust had already been done. All of it could have been avoided with precision injection and engineered systems.

The Pipeline Conditioning Standard

False leak calls are not minor inconveniences. They waste resources, disrupt communities, and erode confidence in the very systems designed to keep people safe.

The Pipeline Conditioning standard is simple: we calculate, we verify, and we inject with precision so our clients never pay the price of someone else’s “close enough.”