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Gas Line Repair in Peabody, MA
52% of households in Peabody heat with utility gas, which means a buried service line runs from the street to a meter on most of these properties. Where that line ends is a federal definition, and it decides who repairs what.
Read this first
A buried service line and a meter sit on most properties in Peabody, where 52% 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 Peabody is supplied
Two questions hide behind one. Where does the regulated line end — the federal answer is the meter outlet. And who pays for a repair on either side of that — which is tariff and state regulation, and varies.
The second one is the one that costs money, and it is answered by your utility rather than by any rule you can look up.
| Households in Peabody | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 52% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 3% |
| Electricity | 18% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 25% |
| Wood and everything else | 2% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 22,305 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. Peabody sits 4 points below the state on mains and about level with it on propane. A state figure would flatten exactly that difference, which is the reason these pages are built town by town instead.
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
- Belmont 70% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Brighton 55% mains gas · 5% tank propane
- Medway 46% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Sagamore Beach 52% mains gas · 10% tank propane
- Wellesley Hills 77% mains gas · 1% 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 Peabody goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038