Home › New Jersey › Columbus
Gas Line Repair in Columbus, NJ
Most of Columbus is on the gas main: 71% of households. That means a meter on the wall and a service line under the ground, and a boundary between them that federal rules put in a specific place.
Read this first
A buried service line and a meter sit on most properties in Columbus, where 71% 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 Columbus is supplied
A buried run from the street to a meter, and piping onward through the property. Federal rules end the service line at the meter outlet; what comes after is customer piping.
The piping people forget they own is the buried run from the meter to a detached garage, a grill or a pool heater. That is theirs, and it may not be marked when somebody comes to locate lines.
| Households in Columbus | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 71% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 7% |
| Electricity | 11% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 8% |
| Wood and everything else | 3% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 3,521 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 Jersey as a whole, 74% of households are on mains gas and 2% on tank propane. Columbus sits about level with the state on mains and 5 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
8-1-1 is free and nationwide, and PHMSA gives callers a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident, injury or worse. Ask them what they will and will not mark: privately owned buried lines on your own side of the meter frequently are not covered.
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 Jersey towns we route in
- Bellmawr 78% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Seaside Heights 76% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Willingboro 74% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Westfield 87% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Hillsdale 92% mains gas · under 1% tank propane
Checking a plumber in New Jersey
New Jersey licenses are issued by the New Jersey State Board of Examiners of Master Plumbers, Division of Consumer Affairs, 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. Gas is one part of what Columbus calls us about.
Call (888) 752-8038