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Gas Line Repair in Dedham, MA
In Dedham, 69% of homes are on mains gas. Every one of them has a service line under the ground between the street and the meter, and part of it belongs to somebody else.
Read this first
A buried service line and a meter sit on most properties in Dedham, where 69% of homes are on mains gas. Federal rules end the utility's service line at the meter outlet, so everything downstream of the meter is the owner's to maintain and repair.
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 Dedham is supplied
Under 49 CFR § 192.3, a service line ends at "the outlet of the customer meter or at the connection to a customer’s piping, whichever is further downstream". Upstream of the meter is the operator’s regulated line. Downstream is customer piping, under local code.
That is where the regulated line stops. Who pays is a separate question set by tariff and state regulation, and it is worth asking your utility rather than assuming.
| Households in Dedham | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 69% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 2% |
| Electricity | 15% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 13% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 10,297 occupied housing units. B25040 records what heats the house, which is the best available guide to whether a property has mains gas or a tank — it does not count service lines directly. Service line definition: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Across Massachusetts as a whole, 56% of households are on mains gas and 4% on tank propane. Dedham sits 13 points above the state on mains and 1 point below it on propane. That distance from the state average is the whole argument for publishing a town figure at all.
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 how the work will be tested and what happens at the end of it. An inspection on gas work is normal rather than a complication, and a contractor who treats it as one is telling you something.
Other Massachusetts towns we route in
- West Newbury 14% mains gas · 20% tank propane
- Swansea 72% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Saugus 51% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Rockland 58% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Maynard 62% mains gas · 3% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Massachusetts
Massachusetts licenses are issued by the Massachusetts Board of State Examiners of Plumbers and Gas Fitters, 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 Dedham for plumbing that has nothing to do with gas.
Call (888) 752-8038