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Gas Line Repair in Howell, NJ
Utility gas heats 83% of homes in Howell. That puts a buried service line and a meter on most properties here, and puts the boundary between the two sides of the system exactly at the meter.
Read this first
A buried service line and a meter sit on most properties in Howell, where 83% 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 Howell is supplied
The meter is the boundary the federal rules draw: a service line terminates at the meter outlet, or at the connection to customer piping if that is further downstream. Everything past it is customer piping.
Ownership and maintenance responsibility follow tariff and state regulation rather than that definition, and they do not always land in the same place. Ask where your utility’s responsibility ends before you need to know.
| Households in Howell | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 83% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 1% |
| Electricity | 7% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 6% |
| Wood and everything else | 2% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 13,755 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 New Jersey as a whole, 74% of households are on mains gas and 2% on tank propane. Howell sits 9 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
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 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 New Jersey towns we route in
- Short Hills 91% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Bayonne 77% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Estell Manor 4% mains gas · 23% tank propane
- Perth Amboy 75% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Brielle 92% mains gas · 0% tank propane
Checking a plumber in New Jersey
New Jersey licenses are issued by the New Jersey State Board of Examiners of Master Plumbers, Division of Consumer Affairs, 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. Other Howell requests are covered by the same line.
Call (888) 752-8038