Gas Line Repair in Eaton, CO
Most of Eaton is on the gas main: 69% 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
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. 69% of homes in Eaton 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 Eaton is supplied
Everything upstream of the meter outlet is the operator’s service line under 49 CFR § 192.3. Everything after it is customer piping under local code. That single point is what a contractor establishes before quoting.
It is also why the answer to "is this my problem" is sometimes no, and why it is worth asking before assuming it is yes.
| Households in Eaton | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 69% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 15% |
| Electricity | 10% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 1% |
| Wood and everything else | 6% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 3,533 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 Colorado as a whole, 68% of households are on mains gas and 3% on tank propane. Eaton sits about level with the state on mains and 12 points above it on propane. That is the gap a statewide number papers over, and the reason the figures above are this town’s rather than the state’s.
Before anyone digs on the property
One free call before any excavation. PHMSA is blunt about why: excavation damage is the leading cause of pipeline incidents, and 8-1-1 raises the odds of avoiding one to 99 in 100. It applies to a fence post as much as a foundation.
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 Colorado towns we route in
- Conifer 48% mains gas · 21% tank propane
- Cascade 81% mains gas · 4% tank propane
- Lone Tree 65% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Windsor 77% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Twin Lakes 24% mains gas · 44% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Colorado
Colorado licenses are issued by the Colorado State Plumbing Board, Division of Professions and Occupations, 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 Eaton goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038