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Gas Line Repair in Nahant, MA
Most of Nahant is on the gas main: 72% 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. 72% of homes in Nahant 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 Nahant is supplied
A buried run from the street to a meter, and piping onward through the property. Federal rules end the service line at the meter outlet; what comes after is customer piping.
The piping people forget they own is the buried run from the meter to a detached garage, a grill or a pool heater. That is theirs, and it may not be marked when somebody comes to locate lines.
| Households in Nahant | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 72% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 0% |
| Electricity | 12% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 16% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 1,604 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 Massachusetts as a whole, 56% of households are on mains gas and 4% on tank propane. Nahant sits 16 points above the state on mains and 4 points 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
A locate before digging is free, and PHMSA is unambiguous about the value — excavation damage is the leading cause of pipeline incidents and calling 8-1-1 first avoids one 99 times in a hundred. The gap to ask about is private buried line, which a standard locate may not mark.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask how much gas work they actually do, not whether they can. Gas is separately licensed in most jurisdictions and plenty of capable plumbers do very little of it.
Other Massachusetts towns we route in
- Revere 59% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- North Weymouth 52% mains gas · under 1% tank propane
- Ipswich 40% mains gas · 7% tank propane
- Roxbury Crossing 59% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Swansea 72% 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. Non-emergency work in Nahant goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038