Gas Line Repair in Prior Lake, MN
Prior Lake is a mains gas town — 82% of households heat with utility gas. The useful thing to know before anything goes wrong is where the utility’s responsibility stops.
Read this first
A buried service line and a meter sit on most properties in Prior Lake, where 82% of homes are on mains gas. Federal rules end the utility's service line at the meter outlet, so everything downstream of the meter is the owner's to maintain and repair.
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 Prior Lake is supplied
On a mains connection there are two systems, not one, and the meter divides them. The federal definition puts the end of the regulated service line at the meter outlet; local code governs everything beyond it.
Practically, that means part of the problem may not be yours at all — and part of it certainly is.
| Households in Prior Lake | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 82% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 3% |
| Electricity | 13% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 0% |
| Wood and everything else | 3% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 12,293 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 Minnesota as a whole, 77% of households are on mains gas and 2% on tank propane. Prior Lake sits 5 points above the state on mains and about level with it on propane. A state figure would flatten exactly that difference, which is the reason these pages are built town by town instead.
Before anyone digs on the property
The single most dangerous thing most people will ever do to a gas line is put a spade through it. PHMSA calls excavation damage the leading cause of pipeline incidents; 8-1-1 is a nationwide toll-free number to call before any excavation, and calling it gives a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask whether the job needs a permit and who is pulling it. Gas work is separately permitted in most jurisdictions and the answer should not be you.
Other Minnesota towns we route in
- Young America 57% mains gas · 25% tank propane
- New Germany 41% mains gas · 37% tank propane
- Jordan 76% mains gas · 9% tank propane
- Eden Prairie 83% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Elko New Market 79% mains gas · 7% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Minnesota
Minnesota licenses are issued by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, which publishes a public search you can use before work begins. The Minnesota lookup also shows bond status and any enforcement action.
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 Prior Lake goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038