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Gas Line Repair in Bedford, NH
In Bedford, 17% of homes run on tank propane rather than mains gas. That changes the answer to almost every question on this page, starting with who owns the pipe.
Read this first
No regulated utility service line is involved where the gas comes out of a tank, and 17% of homes in Bedford run on propane. The tank and the buried line from it are governed by the supply agreement rather than by a meter boundary, which changes who is responsible for what.
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 Bedford 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 Bedford | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 19% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 17% |
| Electricity | 7% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 53% |
| Wood and everything else | 3% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 8,033 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 New Hampshire as a whole, 25% of households are on mains gas and 17% on tank propane. Bedford sits 7 points below the state on mains and about level with 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
PHMSA describes excavation damage as the leading cause of pipeline incidents, and puts the effect of one free phone call plainly: someone who calls 8-1-1 before they dig has a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident, injury, harm to the environment and even death.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask what is being left behind: where the new pipe runs, at what depth, and whether you will get a photograph of the trench before it is filled. That record will not exist anywhere else and you will want it eventually.
Other New Hampshire towns we route in
- Antrim 3% mains gas · 25% tank propane
- Rye 1% mains gas · 26% tank propane
- Gilmanton 0% mains gas · 27% tank propane
- East Hampstead 7% mains gas · 39% tank propane
- New Castle 4% mains gas · 39% tank propane
Checking a plumber in New Hampshire
The authority is the New Hampshire Office of Professional Licensure and Certification, Mechanical Safety and Licensing Board. New Hampshire licenses plumbers but publishes no online licensee search, so verification means contacting the office directly.
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 Bedford job, gas or otherwise, is routed from here.
Call (888) 752-8038