Gas Line Repair in Hopkins, MN
In Hopkins, 70% 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
The utility's regulated line ends at the meter outlet and the piping beyond it belongs to the property owner. That boundary decides most gas line questions in Hopkins, where 70% of households heat with utility gas and a buried service line runs from the street on most properties.
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 Hopkins is supplied
The meter is doing two jobs: measuring gas, and marking where the federally regulated line stops. The second is the one that matters when something fails.
Buried customer piping past the meter — out to a garage, a grill, a generator — is the owner’s, and it is easy to forget it exists until somebody digs.
| Households in Hopkins | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 70% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 1% |
| Electricity | 24% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | under 1% |
| Wood and everything else | 4% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 23,236 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 Minnesota as a whole, 77% of households are on mains gas and 2% on tank propane. Hopkins sits 7 points below 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
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 Minnesota towns we route in
- Waconia 77% mains gas · 6% tank propane
- Dayton 93% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Belle Plaine 67% mains gas · 19% tank propane
- Mayer 70% mains gas · 14% tank propane
- South Saint Paul 80% mains gas · 1% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Minnesota
Minnesota licenses are issued by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry, which publishes a public search you can use before work begins. The Minnesota lookup also shows bond status and any enforcement action.
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 Hopkins calls us about.
Call (888) 752-8038