Gas Leak Checklist: What to Do and What Not to Do

If you smell sulfur or rotten eggs in your home, leave first and figure everything else out later. Do not flip a switch, do not unplug anything, and do not use a phone inside the house. Get everyone out, leave the door open behind you, and call PSE's gas emergency line and 911 once you are safely away. This checklist covers the exact order of operations and the mistakes that turn a leak into a disaster.

The gas leak checklist: in order

1. Get everyone out, including pets. Walk straight outside. Do not stop to investigate, gather valuables, or find the source. The source can be found later, from a safe distance, by people with meters.
2. Touch nothing electrical on the way. No light switches on or off, no unplugging, no thermostats, no doorbells. A switch makes a tiny spark, and a room with enough gas in it only needs a tiny spark.
3. Leave the door open as you exit. An open door vents gas without you touching anything else. Do not spend time opening windows. Leaving fast matters more than airing out.
4. Put real distance between you and the house. Across the street is a good baseline. Gather everyone at one spot so nobody goes back in looking for someone who already left.
5. Call PSE's gas emergency line and 911 from outside. The PSE emergency number is on your bill and their website. Save it in your phone today, while you are reading this and nothing is wrong.
6. Shut off gas at the meter only if it is safe and you know how. The valve next to the meter closes with a quarter turn of a wrench, crosswise to the pipe. If you have any doubt, skip this step. It is the responder's job.
7. Stay out until you are told it is safe. Nobody re-enters until the utility or fire crew clears the house, no matter how faint the smell seems from the porch.

What NOT to do

• Do not hunt for the leak yourself, and never with a flame. The old match trick is how houses explode.
• Do not flip any switch, even to turn something off.
• Do not use phones, laptops, or anything with a battery inside the house. Call from outside.
• Do not start a car parked in an attached garage.
• Do not use the garage door opener. Pull the manual release if you must open it, or leave through a door.
• Do not assume a faint smell is a small problem. Concentration varies room to room, and your nose fatigues within minutes.
• Do not turn the gas back on yourself after a shutoff. The utility or a licensed professional must restore service and relight appliances safely.

Why gas smells like rotten eggs

Natural gas has no odor of its own. Utilities add a chemical called mercaptan so leaks announce themselves, and that additive is the rotten egg smell. It works, but only if you act on it. There are quieter signs of a slow leak too: a hissing sound near a gas line or appliance, house plants dying for no reason, a patch of dead grass over a buried line, dirt or bubbles moving in a wet area of the yard, and a gas bill that creeps up without a change in usage. Any of those signs deserves a professional check even without the smell.

What happens after you call

A utility responder checks the home with a combustible gas detector, finds the concentration, and shuts off the meter if needed. Then responsibility splits at the meter. Piping from the street to the meter belongs to the utility, and they repair it. Everything after the meter, the house piping that feeds your furnace, water heater, range, and fireplace, belongs to you, and repairs on it are done by a licensed professional, not the utility. In Washington that gas piping work is regulated and permitted for good reason. Our gas line service page covers repair, replacement, and new runs, all by licensed plumbers who work on gas every week.

How gas line repair actually works

The repair starts with a pressure test. The technician isolates the house piping, pressurizes it, and watches the gauge. A pressure drop confirms a leak, and systematic isolation narrows it to a section. From there the failed section is repaired or replaced, the system is retested until it holds pressure, and the work is permitted and inspected where required. The last step matters as much as the first: every gas appliance gets relit and checked for proper operation, because a furnace or water heater that sat without gas needs a correct restart, not a guess. For the fundamentals every homeowner with gas should know, our guide to gas line safety basics is the place to start.

Common questions

I only smell gas near the stove sometimes. Is that an emergency?

A brief whiff when a burner lights, or when a burner knob got bumped without igniting, is common and stops when the burner is lit or off. A smell that lingers, returns, or shows up away from the stove is not a quirk. Treat it as a leak and use the checklist above.

Do carbon monoxide detectors detect gas leaks?

No. Carbon monoxide and natural gas are different gases, and a CO detector does not respond to methane. Combination units that detect both exist, and putting one near gas appliances is a reasonable upgrade. Every home with gas appliances should have working CO detection either way, and our guide to smoke and CO detectors covers placement.

Who fixes a leak in the buried line between the meter and the house?

If the buried run is on the house side of the meter, it is the homeowner's responsibility, and a licensed plumber repairs or replaces it. That surprises a lot of people during their first leak. The utility's responsibility ends at the meter.

Can I turn my own gas back on after the utility shuts it off?

No. Restoring service involves checking the whole system, purging air from lines, and relighting every appliance in the right order. The utility or a licensed professional does it. A wrong restart can put an unlit gas flow into your house, which is the exact problem you just escaped.

What to do next

Two things are worth doing today, before there is ever a smell. Save PSE's gas emergency number in your phone, and learn where your gas meter shutoff is and which wrench fits it. Our emergency shutoff guide walks your family through every shutoff in the house in twenty minutes. If your home has aging gas piping, a suspected slow leak, or an appliance move coming, start at our emergency page for urgent triage or our gas line page for planned work. Call (206) 970-1031, where real people answer early and late, every day, or book online.