If you smell gas anywhere in Spartanburg, the first call goes to Piedmont Natural Gas at 800-752-7504 or to 911, and you make it from outside. Walk out without touching switches or your phone, get well away from the house, and then dial. Piedmont crews respond to odor calls around the clock.
What happens next depends on where the leak is. Piedmont fixes its own main, service line and meter. If the trouble is past the meter, in the piping that runs under your floor or to an appliance, the technician will usually shut it off, hang a red tag and leave the repair to you and a licensed contractor.
That is the call we take. Our phone is answered 24 hours a day, and gas is the work the company is built around. We find the leak, replace what failed, pressure-test the repair and relight what Piedmont turned off.
Where older Spartanburg piping gives out
In houses that got gas decades ago, the weak spots are predictable. Steel pipe rusts where it lies against a damp brick pier or dips into the dirt of the crawlspace. Old plug valves stiffen and weep around the stem. Unions near a furnace that has been swapped two or three times have been taken apart and remade more often than they were meant to be.
Appliance connectors are another frequent culprit. An uncoated brass connector from an earlier era behind a range or dryer is the kind of part the industry has long recommended replacing on sight, whether or not it is leaking yet.
Finding these takes patience in a crawlspace. We work along the pipe with an electronic detector, confirm suspects with bubble solution, and isolate sections under pressure when the smell is upstairs but the pipe is below.
- Rusted steel at piers, foundation walls and low spots in the crawlspace
- Weeping plug valves at the furnace, water heater or old fireplace stubs
- Old flexible connectors behind ranges and dryers
- Capped stubs from appliances that were removed years ago
Getting the gas back on after a red tag
A red tag lists the condition the Piedmont technician found. Send us a photo of it when you call and we can usually tell what parts to bring. We repair that condition, then check the rest of the house piping too, since a system that has one leak often has a second one nobody has noticed.
If the meter was locked, only Piedmont removes the lock. After our repair and pressure test, we tell you what to say when you call them back, and we stay in touch until the gas is flowing and every appliance is relit.
Leaks in the yard
Older in-town lots often have a detached garage or workshop, and some of them were fed with steel pipe buried decades ago. Steel underground eventually corrodes through. Signs include a smell near the garage, a patch of dead grass along a straight line, or bubbles in a puddle after rain.
SC811 only marks Piedmont's pipe up to the meter, so a buried line past it has to be located another way before anyone digs. Often the right answer for an old steel yard line is to replace it with plastic gas pipe and a tracer wire rather than patch one hole.
When the repair needs a permit
Swapping a connector or remaking a joint is a repair. Replacing a run of pipe or a buried line is generally permitted work, filed with City of Spartanburg Building Inspections inside the city or Spartanburg County Building Codes outside it. We handle the filing and keep the test record for the inspector and for Piedmont.
In Spartanburg specifically
Piedmont's emergency line
Piedmont Natural Gas takes leak and odor calls at 800-752-7504 at any hour. Save it in your phone, along with our number, before you need either one.
Propane at the county edges
Outside the reach of Piedmont's mains, homes run on propane. A propane leak settles low, into crawlspaces and basements, so call 911 and your propane supplier first.
Crawlspace access
Most of the piping in older Spartanburg homes is under the floor. Clear the crawlspace door before we arrive if you can do so safely; it speeds up the search.
Carbon monoxide is different
A CO alarm going off points to a combustion or venting problem, not a raw gas leak. Get out and call 911 either way.
How a gas leak call runs
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You get safe and call the utility
Leave the house, call 911 or the utility from outside, and wait for them to make the area safe and shut off gas as needed.
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You call us, any hour
Tell us what the utility found and whether there is a red tag. A person answers day and night.
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Locate every leak
Electronic detection, leak solution and pressure decay testing, section by section, until we know where every leak is, including any the utility did not flag.
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Explain the repair
We show you the leak, explain what failed and why, and walk through the repair before we start.
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Replace the failed parts
Leaking fittings, valves, connectors or pipe are replaced with the correct material for the location.
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Pressure test
The repaired system is tested to the fuel gas code minimum and must hold with no drop.
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Restore service and relight
We purge the lines, coordinate with the utility if the meter was locked, relight every appliance and check each one for leaks.
The full guide to gas leak detection and repair, and everything else about plumbing and gas in Spartanburg.