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Gas Line Repair in Chester, NH
In Chester, 27% 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
27% of households in Chester 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 Chester is supplied
Where a mains customer has a utility on the other side of a meter, a propane customer has a supplier on the other side of a contract. It is a different relationship and it is worth reading once before it matters.
The emergency response is identical either way. Propane is odorized like natural gas, and the instruction is the same: leave, and call 911 from somewhere else.
| Households in Chester | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 3% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 27% |
| Electricity | 10% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 53% |
| Wood and everything else | 6% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 1,827 occupied housing units. B25040 records what heats the house, which is the best available guide to whether a property has mains gas or a tank — it does not count service lines directly. 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. Chester sits 23 points below the state on mains and 10 points above 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
A locate before digging is free, and PHMSA is unambiguous about the value — excavation damage is the leading cause of pipeline incidents and calling 8-1-1 first avoids one 99 times in a hundred. The gap to ask about is private buried line, which a standard locate may not mark.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask them to describe the fault before they price it. "The line needs replacing" is not a diagnosis, and on a buried run the difference between one damaged point and a line at the end of its life is most of the cost.
Other New Hampshire towns we route in
- Gilmanton 0% mains gas · 27% tank propane
- Westmoreland 1% mains gas · 13% tank propane
- Pittsfield 1% mains gas · 28% tank propane
- Center Harbor 1% mains gas · 25% tank propane
- Goffstown 15% mains gas · 21% 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. Gas is one part of what Chester calls us about.
Call (888) 752-8038