There seems to be a lot of confusion about the differences between maintenance facility modifications for CNG or LNG vehicles. Although the vast majority of the building code requirements for CNG and LNG vehicle maintenance facilities are similar, there are a couple of distinct differences that need to be considered. One of the main differences is that methane gas detection is required for LNG maintenance facilities. The reason is actually easy to understand, LNG does not have an odor and cannot be detected by our sense of smell.
Even though CNG has an odor and the code does not require gas detection, our design professionals highly recommend gas detection for CNG vehicle maintenance facilities as well. The reason is that some CNG is sourced from LNG fuel infrastructure. This fuel is sometimes characterized as LCNG. CNG that is sourced from LCNG fuel infrastructure does not have an odor, much like LNG. So rather than trying to determine where the CNG fuel for the vehicle that you are servicing was produced, we recommend including the gas detection system in the retrofit.