Gas Line Repair and the Half of the Line That Is Yours
If you smell gas, leave and call 911. Otherwise: who owns which part of the line, why digging is the biggest risk, and what to ask a contractor.
Free to homeowners — the contractor pays us for the introduction, you never do.
Read this first
If you smell gas, leave and call 911 or your utility from outside. Otherwise the two things worth knowing are that the service line legally ends at the outlet of the meter, and that excavation is the leading cause of pipeline incidents.
Source: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003; PHMSA, 811 Day.
Go straight to the one that sounds like yours:
- If You Smell Gas: What to Do, in Order
- Who Owns the Gas Line, and Where That ChangesFederal rules define the service line as ending at the meter outlet.
- Call 811 Before You Dig — Every Dig
- You are never chargedContractors pay us when we route them a call. There is no cost to the homeowner, ever.
- Every figure names its sourceThe numbers on this site come from public data and the page says which, so you can check them.
- We say where we coverCalls are routed by ZIP code to independent contractors.See the coverage
- We say when not to callIf the fix is a few minutes of your own time, this site tells you that instead of selling you a visit.
Every other plumbing subject is about inconvenience. This one is not, so the emergency instruction comes first on every page here and nothing on this site tells you to work on gas yourself.
What this site is
GaslineSafe is a referral service, not a contractor and not an emergency service. If you suspect a leak, leave and call 911 and your gas utility — not us. Otherwise we connect homeowners with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands, and gas work is separately licensed in most of them; every state page sets out who licenses plumbers there and where to check. We carry out no work, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call.If you smell gas
Turn off gas appliances if you can do it on the way out without delay. Leave the area on foot. Do not use a phone or a cell phone, do not cause any flame or spark — light switches included — do not ring doorbells, and do not try to operate any valve. Call 911 from a safe location, then the gas utility.
Do not call us. We are a referral service, not an emergency line. The full list is here and it is the shortest page on the site.
Who owns which part
On mains gas, 49 CFR § 192.3 ends the regulated service line at "the outlet of the customer meter or at the connection to a customer’s piping, whichever is further downstream". So part of the system is the operator’s and part is yours.
On propane there is no service line and no meter boundary — the tank, the regulator and the buried run are all the property owner’s. Who pays is a separate question set by tariff and state regulation, and it is worth asking your utility rather than assuming.
Source: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
The biggest risk is a spade
PHMSA describes excavation damage as the leading cause of pipeline incidents, and says someone who calls 8-1-1 before digging has a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident, injury, harm to the environment and even death. It is nationwide, toll-free and free.
Ask what they will and will not mark: privately owned buried line on your own side of the meter frequently is not covered.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What this site will not do
Tell you how to check, tighten, test, shut off or relight anything. There is no diagnostic procedure on this site and that is deliberate: the correct response to a suspected leak does not depend on confirming it first, and PHMSA is explicit that you should not attempt to operate pipeline valves yourself.
Where we route
We publish a page for each of the 4,387 towns we route in across 38 states, each with its own split between mains gas and tank propane. Across all of them, 50% of households are on mains and 3% on propane.
Where we route calls
Tap your state for the towns and ZIP codes we route in, and the figures behind them.
- Arkansas
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Massachusetts
- Maryland
- Maine
- Minnesota
- Missouri
- Mississippi
- North Carolina
- New Hampshire
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- Nevada
- New York
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this site is public and attributed. You can go and check any of them.
- HousingUS Census BureauAmerican Community Survey 5-year estimates — the housing figures on every town page, and the table each one comes from is named on the page.
What happens when you call
No form, no quote tool, no waiting for an email.
- You tell us what the water is doingOne short conversation. If it turns out to be something you can fix in five minutes, we will say so.
- We route the callWe match your ZIP code to an independent contractor who already covers your area — not a call center three states away.
- They quote, you decideWe do not set prices and we never charge you. The contractor pays us for the introduction.
- 4,456towns with a page of their own
- 39states we route calls in
- $0what a homeowner ever pays us
For repair work, not for a suspected leak.If you can smell gas, leave and call 911 or your utility from outside; this is the wrong number for that. For everything else — a line, a meter, an appliance connection — we will route you to a contractor covering your area, free of charge to you. Gas work heads this site; other plumbing is handled too.
Call (888) 752-8038
