If you smell gas, in order
Natural gas is odourless; the sulphur smell is an additive put there specifically so you will notice. If you can smell it, treat it as real.
- Get everyone out. People and pets, immediately.
- Do not touch any electrical switch — on or off. A switch makes a small spark, and that is exactly what you are avoiding. That includes light switches, garage door openers and thermostats.
- Do not use a phone inside the building. Call from outside, well away.
- Do not start a vehicle in an attached garage.
- Leave doors open on your way out if it is convenient, but do not linger to ventilate.
- Call the gas utility, then 911, from outside. Do not go back in until they say so.
Worth knowing
Do not attempt to find the leak yourself. Not with soapy water, not with a detector, not by sniffing along the line. Locating a leak is what the utility does, and they will be there quickly and at no cost for exactly this.
Signs that are less obvious than a smell
Not every leak produces an obvious smell, particularly a small one outdoors or in an unoccupied part of the house.
A hissing or whistling near a gas line, meter or appliance connection.
Dead or discoloured vegetation in a line over a buried gas line, with no other explanation. Escaping gas displaces oxygen at the roots.
Bubbles in standing water or a puddle over a buried line after rain.
Physical symptoms that improve when you leave the house — headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue. This is worth taking seriously and it applies to carbon monoxide as much as to gas.
Soot marks around a gas appliance, or a burner flame that is yellow rather than blue. That is incomplete combustion, which is how carbon monoxide gets produced.
Why the licensing requirement exists
Texas requires gas work to be done by a licensed plumber with a current gas certification, and the reason is straightforward: the failure mode is not a leak on a floor.
The work involves correctly sizing the line for the appliance load, using approved materials and joint compounds rated for gas, pressure-testing the installation before it is put into service, and permitting and inspection where required.
Line sizing is the part that gets missed by unqualified work. A line adequate for one appliance may be undersized once a second is added, and an undersized line starves the burner — producing incomplete combustion and carbon monoxide rather than an obvious failure. The appliance appears to work.
That is also why a gas water heater conversion, or adding a gas range or outdoor kitchen, is not simply a matter of running a pipe to the right place. The whole system's capacity has to be reconsidered.
Our licence is Master Plumber M-38925, verifiable through the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. Ask anyone quoting gas work for theirs.
What we handle
Gas work here generally falls into a few categories.
New appliance connections — ranges, cooktops, dryers, water heaters, outdoor kitchens, fire pits and pool heaters, including confirming the existing system can carry the added load.
Line extensions to a new location, correctly sized for what will be on the end of it.
Repairs and replacement of damaged, corroded or ageing lines.
Water heater conversions between fuel types, which involve both gas and venting.
Pressure testing and inspection, including for property sales where a buyer or insurer wants the system verified.
Sediment traps and shutoffs where an older installation lacks them.
Two things worth knowing as an owner
Know where your gas shutoff is. It is at the meter, and it usually needs a wrench — keep one nearby. Turn it off only if you have been told to, or if there is a fire; once gas is shut off, relighting appliances is a job for the utility or a qualified technician rather than for you.
Fit carbon monoxide detectors. Gas leaks announce themselves by smell. Carbon monoxide — the product of incomplete combustion from an appliance that is starved of air or venting badly — does not. It has no smell at all, and the early symptoms are indistinguishable from flu.
Detectors belong outside sleeping areas and on every level. They have a service life, typically five to seven years, printed on the back — a detector past its date is decoration.
That combination, a shutoff you can find and a detector that works, covers the two failure modes that actually hurt people.