Gas Line Repair in Hempstead, NY
Gas arrives by pipe for 72% of homes in Hempstead. The part of it you can see is the meter; the part that goes wrong most expensively is the part you cannot.
Read this first
A buried service line and a meter sit on most properties in Hempstead, where 72% 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 Hempstead 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 Hempstead | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 72% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 3% |
| Electricity | 7% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 16% |
| Wood and everything else | 2% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 18,025 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 York as a whole, 61% of households are on mains gas and 3% on tank propane. Hempstead sits 11 points above the state on mains and about level with it on propane. That spread is what a state average hides, and it is why this page carries the town’s own figures rather than inheriting them.
Before anyone digs on the property
PHMSA describes excavation damage as the leading cause of pipeline incidents, and puts the effect of one free phone call plainly: someone who calls 8-1-1 before they dig has a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident, injury, harm to the environment and even death.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
If any part of the job is in the ground, ask when they are calling 8-1-1 and whether a private line may be in the way. Both answers should come before the excavation, not during it.
Other New York towns we route in
- Roslyn 70% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Hastings On Hudson 63% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Buchanan 53% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Phoenicia 1% mains gas · 30% tank propane
- North Salem 3% mains gas · 10% tank propane
Checking a plumber in New York
New York issues no state plumbing license. New York City licenses Master and Journeyman Plumbers through the Department of Buildings; elsewhere in the state it is your own city, town or county. Start here. Ask the contractor which municipality licenses them and confirm it with that office 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 Hempstead goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038