Gas Line Repair in Latham, NY
73% of households in Latham take mains gas. Two things follow: there is a buried line on the property, and somebody other than you is responsible for part of it.
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. 73% of homes in Latham 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 Latham 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 Latham | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 73% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 3% |
| Electricity | 20% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 3% |
| Wood and everything else | 2% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 8,014 occupied housing units. B25040 is a fuel count, not an infrastructure count. It tells you what burns in these houses, from which the arrangement follows — but it is an inference, not a meter reading. 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. Latham sits 12 points above the state on mains and about level with it on propane. That distance from the state average is the whole argument for publishing a town figure at all.
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 which side of the meter the work is on before anything else. On the utility side it may not be a contractor job at all, and a quote that has not established that has not established whose problem it is.
Other New York towns we route in
- Sayville 53% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Water Mill 27% mains gas · 16% tank propane
- Syosset 50% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Islip 47% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Brookhaven 23% mains gas · 3% 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. Any Latham job, gas or otherwise, is routed from here.
Call (888) 752-8038