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The Buried Run
The length between the main in the street and the meter on the wall is the part nobody sees, and it fails differently from anything indoors.
Read this first
The buried section runs from the main to the meter, and a leak in it may never reach your nose because the gas disperses through soil. The signs are on the ground instead: blowing dirt, dead vegetation in a line, and bubbling in standing water.
What is down there
A service line runs from the main in the street to the meter. Under 49 CFR § 192.3 that regulated line ends at the meter outlet, so the buried run up to the meter is the operator’s service line, and anything buried beyond the meter is customer piping.
Source: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Why a buried leak announces itself differently
Indoors, the odorant does the work. Underground, gas disperses into soil and the smell may never reach anybody. PHMSA’s sight list is what to know instead: discolored or abnormally dry soil and vegetation, continuous bubbling in standing water, vaporous fogs, blowing dirt.
Dead grass in a line over a line is the one that gets missed.
What puts it at risk
Digging, overwhelmingly — PHMSA calls excavation damage the leading cause of pipeline incidents. After that, ground movement, and anything that loads the ground above it: a new driveway, heavy vehicles parked where they were not before, a tree root system.
Which is why the free call before any excavation is the single most useful thing on this site after the emergency page.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What a repair involves
Access, first: the run has to be reached, and what is over it decides most of the work. Then whether the fault is a point or the length — a single damaged spot and a line at the end of its life are different jobs with different answers.
And on the utility’s side of the meter it may not be a contractor job at all. Establish which side it is on before anybody quotes.
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