Gas Line Repair in Frederica, DE
Frederica has a large share of propane: 29% of households use bottled or tank gas against 14% on mains. On propane none of the installation belongs to a utility.
Read this first
No regulated utility service line is involved where the gas comes out of a tank, and 29% of homes in Frederica run on propane. The tank and the buried line from it are governed by the supply agreement rather than by a meter boundary, which changes who is responsible for what.
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 Frederica is supplied
A tank, a regulator, and buried line between them and the house. All of it is the property owner’s, and none of it sits under the federal service line definition that governs a mains connection.
That makes the buried run private buried line — which is exactly the sort a standard locate may not mark before somebody digs.
| Households in Frederica | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 14% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 29% |
| Electricity | 23% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 28% |
| Wood and everything else | 7% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 2,081 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 Delaware as a whole, 42% of households are on mains gas and 9% on tank propane. Frederica sits 29 points below the state on mains and 20 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
Before any digging — a fence post as much as a foundation — call 8-1-1. It is a nationwide toll-free number, it costs nothing, and PHMSA puts the chance of avoiding an incident afterwards at 99 percent.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask what they will do about the existing load. Adding an appliance changes what the existing pipe has to deliver, and sizing is a calculation against the whole system rather than the new run alone.
Other Delaware towns we route in
- Millsboro 18% mains gas · 28% tank propane
- Middletown 67% mains gas · 6% tank propane
- Selbyville 23% mains gas · 20% tank propane
- Townsend 49% mains gas · 11% tank propane
- Frankford 7% mains gas · 22% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Delaware
Delaware licenses are issued by the Delaware Board of Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Examiners, 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. Gas is one part of what Frederica calls us about.
Call (888) 752-8038