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Gas Line Repair in Foster, RI
In Foster, 12% of homes use gas of any sort. Most properties here have no service line and no meter, and the ones that do are the exception.
Read this first
Gas of any kind reaches only 12% of households in Foster, so most homes there have no gas line at all. Where one exists it is more often a tank than a main, which puts the installation on the property rather than behind a meter.
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 Foster is supplied
Low local gas use does not make a buried line safer or a leak less serious. It makes the subject less familiar, which is a different problem and arguably a worse one.
The emergency response does not vary at all: leave on foot, no phones or switches inside, call 911 from elsewhere.
| Households in Foster | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 3% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 8% |
| Electricity | 5% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 68% |
| Wood and everything else | 16% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 1,952 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 Rhode Island as a whole, 56% of households are on mains gas and 4% on tank propane. Foster sits 52 points below the state on mains and about level with 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
The single most dangerous thing most people will ever do to a gas line is put a spade through it. PHMSA calls excavation damage the leading cause of pipeline incidents; 8-1-1 is a nationwide toll-free number to call before any excavation, and calling it gives a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident.
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 Rhode Island towns we route in
- West Greenwich 10% mains gas · 19% tank propane
- Glendale 0% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Pawtucket 68% mains gas · 5% tank propane
- North Smithfield 26% mains gas · 6% tank propane
- Woonsocket 64% mains gas · 4% 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. We serve Foster for plumbing that has nothing to do with gas.
Call (888) 752-8038