After some experimentation, Wouter Sluis discovered that the gas bubbles were of flammable gas. It took almost 45 years to figure out how to make this flammable gas suitable for (household) use. Together with the firm Lankelma, an installation was developed that could separate the gas from the Norton well water. It was now suitable for use.

This marsh gas is a result of bacterial decomposition of organic material, such as plants and algae, in the sandy packages under the Holocene peat and clay layers. The marsh gas contains about eighty percent methane and twenty percent nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

In 1950 there were 816 sources of gas, now there are only a few. Bad weather creates more gas.