Home › Massachusetts › Dorchester Center
Gas Line Repair in Dorchester Center, MA
67% of households in Dorchester Center take mains gas. Two things follow: there is a buried line on the property, and somebody other than you is responsible for part of it.
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. 67% of homes in Dorchester Center 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 Dorchester Center is supplied
On a mains connection there are two systems, not one, and the meter divides them. The federal definition puts the end of the regulated service line at the meter outlet; local code governs everything beyond it.
Practically, that means part of the problem may not be yours at all — and part of it certainly is.
| Households in Dorchester Center | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 67% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 4% |
| Electricity | 20% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 7% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 19,987 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 Massachusetts as a whole, 56% of households are on mains gas and 4% on tank propane. Dorchester Center sits 11 points above the state on mains and about level with it on propane. The state number would tell you something true about the state and very little about here, which is why it is not the number above.
Before anyone digs on the property
Digging is the risk, not age or material. PHMSA names excavation damage as the leading cause of pipeline incidents and puts a caller’s chance of avoiding one at 99 percent. 8-1-1 is nationwide, toll-free, and costs nothing.
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 Massachusetts towns we route in
- Marblehead 71% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Hanscom AFB 54% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Pembroke 51% mains gas · 4% tank propane
- North Weymouth 52% mains gas · under 1% tank propane
- Somerville 71% 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. Gas is one part of what Dorchester Center calls us about.
Call (888) 752-8038