Gas Line Repair in Ellendale, DE
18% of households in Ellendale heat with bottled or tank propane. On propane there is no utility service line and no meter boundary — the tank, the regulator and the buried run to the house are all the property owner’s.
Read this first
18% of households in Ellendale use bottled or tank gas, which puts the supply on the property rather than under the street. There is no utility service line and no meter boundary: the tank, the regulator and the line to the house belong to the owner or the gas supplier by contract.
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 Ellendale is supplied
Propane changes the ownership question completely. There is no utility that owns a length of it, which means there is nobody else whose problem part of it is.
It also changes the risk in one specific way: propane is heavier than air and collects in low spaces rather than dispersing upward. Basements, pits and crawl spaces are where it goes.
| Households in Ellendale | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 1% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 18% |
| Electricity | 66% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 13% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 1,161 occupied housing units. Read it as fuel rather than as plumbing. The share on utility gas is how many houses burn it, which is the nearest thing published to how many have a service line. Service line definition: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Across Delaware as a whole, 42% of households are on mains gas and 9% on tank propane. Ellendale sits 42 points below the state on mains and 9 points above it on propane. That distance from the state average is the whole argument for publishing a town figure at all.
Before anyone digs on the property
One free call before any excavation. PHMSA is blunt about why: excavation damage is the leading cause of pipeline incidents, and 8-1-1 raises the odds of avoiding one to 99 in 100. It applies to a fence post as much as a foundation.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask which side of the meter the work is on before anything else. On the utility side it may not be a contractor job at all, and a quote that has not established that has not established whose problem it is.
Other Delaware towns we route in
- Camden Wyoming 56% mains gas · 7% tank propane
- Harbeson 34% mains gas · 17% tank propane
- Bridgeville 24% mains gas · 14% tank propane
- Millsboro 18% mains gas · 28% tank propane
- Felton 21% mains gas · 18% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Delaware
Delaware licenses are issued by the Delaware Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners, 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. Non-emergency work in Ellendale goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038