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Gas Line Repair in Exeter, RI
Neither arrangement dominates Exeter: 15% mains gas, 11% tank propane. This page applies to both, and the difference between them is the first thing to establish.
Read this first
Exeter splits between mains and tank gas, at 15% on utility gas and 11% on bottled. Which one a property has decides where responsibility changes hands: a meter outlet marks the boundary on mains gas, while a tank puts the whole installation on the owner.
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
Where both are common, so is the assumption that they work the same way. They do not: on mains, part of the system is somebody else’s responsibility; on propane, none of it is.
| Households in Exeter | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 15% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 11% |
| Electricity | 7% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 58% |
| Wood and everything else | 9% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 2,011 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 Rhode Island as a whole, 56% of households are on mains gas and 4% on tank propane. Exeter sits 41 points below the state on mains and 7 points above it on propane. Averages are where this kind of difference disappears. The figures on this page are the town’s own for that reason.
Before anyone digs on the property
Digging is the risk, not age or material. PHMSA names excavation damage as the leading cause of pipeline incidents and puts a caller’s chance of avoiding one at 99 percent. 8-1-1 is nationwide, toll-free, and costs nothing.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask whether the job needs a permit and who is pulling it. Gas work is separately permitted in most jurisdictions and the answer should not be you.
Other Rhode Island towns we route in
- Johnston 57% mains gas · 4% tank propane
- West Greenwich 10% mains gas · 19% tank propane
- Lincoln 61% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- East Providence 61% mains gas · 4% tank propane
- Warwick 65% mains gas · 2% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Rhode Island
Rhode Island licenses are issued by the Rhode Island Division of Professional Regulation, Department of Labor and Training, 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. Non-emergency work in Exeter goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038