Gas Line Repair in Erie, CO
Most of Erie is on the gas main: 82% of households. That means a meter on the wall and a service line under the ground, and a boundary between them that federal rules put in a specific place.
Read this first
Responsibility changes hands at the meter outlet. The line under the ground between the street and the meter is the utility's up to that point, and the yard line and house piping after it are the property owner's. 82% of homes in Erie heat with utility gas.
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey table B25040; the service line boundary is 49 CFR § 192.3.
If you smell gas right now
Leave the building on foot. Do not use a phone or a light switch inside. Call 911 and your gas utility from somewhere else, and do not call us — we are a referral service, not an emergency line. The full list, in order.
How Erie is supplied
49 CFR § 192.3 fixes the end of the service line at the meter outlet. It is a precise answer to a narrow question, and it is not the same as who is responsible for repairs, which varies by utility and by state.
Establishing which side of the meter a fault is on is the first thing any contractor should do, because it decides whether they are the right person to call.
| Households in Erie | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 82% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 1% |
| Electricity | 16% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 0% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 12,960 occupied housing units. B25040 is a fuel count, not an infrastructure count. It tells you what burns in these houses, from which the arrangement follows — but it is an inference, not a meter reading. Service line definition: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Across Colorado as a whole, 68% of households are on mains gas and 3% on tank propane. Erie sits 13 points above the state on mains and 2 points below it on propane. The state number would tell you something true about the state and very little about here, which is why it is not the number above.
Before anyone digs on the property
Excavation damage remains the leading cause of pipeline incidents according to PHMSA. That is not a fact about pipelines so much as a fact about gardening, and the prevention is one free call to 8-1-1 before the first spade goes in.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask what they will do about the existing load. Adding an appliance changes what the existing pipe has to deliver, and sizing is a calculation against the whole system rather than the new run alone.
Other Colorado towns we route in
- Longmont 78% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Minturn 78% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Fort Collins 68% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Green Mountain Falls 63% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Kiowa 31% mains gas · 43% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Colorado
Colorado licenses are issued by the Colorado State Plumbing Board, Division of Professions and Occupations, which publishes a public search you can use before work begins.
Gas work is separately permitted and separately licensed in most jurisdictions, so ask specifically about gas rather than plumbing in general.
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. Any Erie job, gas or otherwise, is routed from here.
Call (888) 752-8038