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Gas Line Repair in Rockaway, NJ
Most of Rockaway is on the gas main: 63% 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
The utility's regulated line ends at the meter outlet and the piping beyond it belongs to the property owner. That boundary decides most gas line questions in Rockaway, where 63% of households heat with utility gas and a buried service line runs from the street on most properties.
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 Rockaway is supplied
On a mains connection there are two systems, not one, and the meter divides them. The federal definition puts the end of the regulated service line at the meter outlet; local code governs everything beyond it.
Practically, that means part of the problem may not be yours at all — and part of it certainly is.
| Households in Rockaway | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 63% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 4% |
| Electricity | 10% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 22% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 8,687 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. Rockaway sits 12 points below the state on mains and 2 points above it on propane. A state figure would flatten exactly that difference, which is the reason these pages are built town by town instead.
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 how much gas work they actually do, not whether they can. Gas is separately licensed in most jurisdictions and plenty of capable plumbers do very little of it.
Other New Jersey towns we route in
- Chesterfield 78% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Somerville 75% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Absecon 83% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Belleville 76% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Franklin Lakes 87% 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. Other Rockaway requests are covered by the same line.
Call (888) 752-8038