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Gas Line Repair in Ridgewood, NJ
85% of households in Ridgewood heat with utility gas, which means a buried service line runs from the street to a meter on most of these properties. Where that line ends is a federal definition, and it decides who repairs what.
Read this first
Responsibility changes hands at the meter outlet. The line under the ground between the street and the meter is the utility's up to that point, and the yard line and house piping after it are the property owner's. 85% of homes in Ridgewood heat with utility gas.
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 Ridgewood is supplied
Two questions hide behind one. Where does the regulated line end — the federal answer is the meter outlet. And who pays for a repair on either side of that — which is tariff and state regulation, and varies.
The second one is the one that costs money, and it is answered by your utility rather than by any rule you can look up.
| Households in Ridgewood | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 85% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 1% |
| Electricity | 9% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 4% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 8,816 occupied housing units. What B25040 measures is the heating fuel, not the connection. It is the closest published proxy for whether there is a buried service line here, and it is a proxy. 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. Ridgewood sits 10 points above the state on mains and 2 points below 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
Excavation damage remains the leading cause of pipeline incidents according to PHMSA. That is not a fact about pipelines so much as a fact about gardening, and the prevention is one free call to 8-1-1 before the first spade goes in.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask which side of the meter the work is on before anything else. On the utility side it may not be a contractor job at all, and a quote that has not established that has not established whose problem it is.
Other New Jersey towns we route in
- Somerville 75% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Kingston 79% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- New Egypt 44% mains gas · 9% tank propane
- Roselle Park 81% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Netcong 46% mains gas · 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. Any Ridgewood job, gas or otherwise, is routed from here.
Call (888) 752-8038