What Should I Do Right Now If I Smell Gas?

Go outside immediately. Take everyone in the house with you, and take the pets.

Don't gather belongings. Nothing in the house is worth the minute it takes to collect it. If a door is already open, leave it open as you go, but don't go back to open others.

Keep walking once you're outside. Get well away from the building, past the driveway, and keep others away from it too.

Do this even if the smell is faint. A small amount of gas and a large amount are the same instruction, because you have no way to tell which one you're standing in.

Make both calls from outside, well away from the building. Not from the porch, and not from a phone inside the house.

Call 911 first. They dispatch the fire department, and they handle this every day.

Then call Atmos Energy at 866.322.8667. That line runs 24 hours a day. Atmos will send a technician to investigate, and they don't charge for it.

Atmos asks one more thing of anyone who suspects a leak. Don't assume someone else already reported it. Neighbors tend to assume the same thing, and a leak nobody reports is a leak nobody responds to.

If you're not certain it's gas, call anyway. A technician checking and finding nothing is a good outcome.

Stay out. That sounds obvious standing in a driveway, and it gets harder as the minutes pass and nothing seems to be happening.

Don't go back in for a pet you couldn't find, for a laptop, or to open windows. Don't send anyone else in either, including a neighbor who offers.

The building stays empty until the utility technician or the fire department says otherwise. They have instruments. You have a nose, and a nose stops registering an odor after a while. That's one of the reasons this rule exists.

Wait for someone to tell you it's clear. Not for the smell to fade.

Every item on this list is something a reasonable person might try. That's exactly why the list exists.

• Don't flip any switch, on or off. A switch makes a small spark as it moves. That includes lamps and ceiling fans.
• Don't use a phone inside the building. Make your calls outside, away from the house.
• Don't open the garage door with the opener. The motor is an ignition source, and an attached garage is part of the house.
• Don't start a car parked in an attached garage.
• Don't light anything. No matches, no lighters, no candles.
• Don't try to find the leak. Atmos says never to do this, and they mean it.
• Don't shut off the gas at the meter. Atmos advises against it, even during an evacuation. Leave it to the technician.

Notice what these have in common. Each one is an attempt to help, and each one keeps you inside a building you should already have left.

If you're reading this because something seems off but you're not sure, here's what to check for. All of it from a position where you can leave quickly.

Smell. Natural gas has no odor of its own. Utilities add a compound that smells like rotten eggs or a skunk, specifically so people notice it.

Listen. A hissing, whistling, or roaring sound near a gas appliance, a meter, or a buried line.

Look. Outside, watch for blowing dust with no wind to explain it. Bubbling in a puddle and a patch of dead vegetation in an otherwise green yard are two more.

Atmos makes a point of saying not to rely on smell alone. Some people can't detect the odorant well, and a strong leak can temporarily deaden your sense of smell.

Any one of these signs gets the same response as all three together. Leave, then call.

A Southlake home often runs gas to far more than a furnace and a water heater.

Count what's typical here. Outdoor kitchens and built-in grills. Pool and spa heaters. Fire pits and outdoor fireplaces. Indoor fireplaces, patio heaters, and standby generators. Each one is a line, a connection, and a shutoff.

Most of those runs cross the yard underground to reach where they're going. That's the piping nobody inspects, running under lawns and patios that get landscaped, re-graded, and dug into over the years.

More appliances means more connections, and more connections means more places worth checking. Our Southlake plumbers can inspect the buried and exposed runs on your property and tell you what they find.

Once the utility has made the property safe, the question becomes what happens next. If the leak is on your side of the meter, that repair has to be made and tested before service comes back. We handle that work, and we'll walk the rest of your gas lines while we're there.

Berkeys started in Southlake in 1975. Our state-licensed plumbers also work in Trophy Club, Grapevine, Colleyville, Keller, Westlake, and Roanoke.

Plumbing emergencies happen anytime. Call 24/7 and we'll prioritize your urgent request. Southlake homeowners rate us 4.9 stars on Google across more than 1,300 reviews. See what they say about Berkeys in Southlake.

Business Address: 1070 S Kimball Ave Suite 131, Southlake, TX 76092

Call (817) 481-5869 for gas line repair in Southlake.