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Gas Line Repair in New Orleans, LA
New Orleans runs on both: 38% mains gas, 1% tank propane, 38% on gas of some kind. The two arrangements answer the ownership question completely differently.
Read this first
In New Orleans, 38% of homes are on mains gas and 1% on bottled, so the town average settles nothing about any one address. Mains gas ends the utility's regulated line at the meter outlet; a tank supply has no such boundary.
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 New Orleans 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 New Orleans | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 38% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 1% |
| Electricity | 60% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | under 1% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 173,684 occupied housing units. B25040 is a fuel count, not an infrastructure count. It tells you what burns in these houses, from which the arrangement follows — but it is an inference, not a meter reading. Service line definition: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Across Louisiana as a whole, 35% of households are on mains gas and 1% on tank propane. New Orleans sits 3 points above the state on mains and 1 point below 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
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
If any part of the job is in the ground, ask when they are calling 8-1-1 and whether a private line may be in the way. Both answers should come before the excavation, not during it.
Other Louisiana towns we route in
- Metairie 51% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Arabi 51% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Loreauville 38% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Mandeville 43% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Braithwaite 34% mains gas · 1% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Louisiana
Louisiana licenses are issued by the State Plumbing Board of Louisiana, 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 New Orleans calls us about.
Call (888) 752-8038