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Gas Line Repair in Exeter, NH
18% of households in Exeter 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
Tank gas serves 18% of households in Exeter. With no utility main and no meter, the boundary that matters on mains gas does not exist here, and the tank, regulator and buried line are the owner's or the supplier's under 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 Exeter 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 Exeter | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 29% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 18% |
| Electricity | 14% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 33% |
| Wood and everything else | 6% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 9,052 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. Exeter sits about level with the state on mains and about level with it on propane. That is the gap a statewide number papers over, and the reason the figures above are this town’s rather than the state’s.
Before anyone digs on the property
Before any digging — a fence post as much as a foundation — call 8-1-1. It is a nationwide toll-free number, it costs nothing, and PHMSA puts the chance of avoiding an incident afterwards at 99 percent.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
If any part of the job is in the ground, ask when they are calling 8-1-1 and whether a private line may be in the way. Both answers should come before the excavation, not during it.
Other New Hampshire towns we route in
- Peterborough 5% mains gas · 22% tank propane
- Bow 25% mains gas · 16% tank propane
- Bradford 0% mains gas · 27% tank propane
- Fitzwilliam 0% mains gas · 11% tank propane
- Salisbury 0% 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. Other Exeter requests are covered by the same line.
Call (888) 752-8038