What to Do First If You Smell Gas
Leave the house immediately. Do not flip a light switch, use a phone indoors, or search for the source with a lighter. If you can reach the meter without lingering, shut the gas off with a wrench, a quarter turn so the valve sits crosswise to the pipe. Call Black Hills Energy from outside, then call (303) 552-3896. Only Black Hills Energy can restore service to the meter once a repair is complete, which is why we coordinate with them directly rather than around them.
Why Pueblo County Gas Lines Fail
The steel gas lines running to Pueblo's older neighborhoods, Bessemer, Belmont, the East Side, are often the same age as the copper supply lines now developing pinhole leaks throughout the same blocks. Decades in the ground and appliance connectors that have long outlived their rated service life go unnoticed until something gives. Pueblo's dry, semi-arid soil and seasonal ground movement work joints and fittings loose over time, the same slow mechanical stress that eventually opens a water pipe.
How We Locate the Leak
Once Black Hills Energy confirms it is safe to proceed, we pressure test the line in sections and use a combustible gas detector along every joint, union, and appliance connection. Smell alone is unreliable outdoors and misleading indoors near several appliances at once. Buried yard lines get traced with the same acoustic methods we use to find buried water leaks, marking the failure point instead of trenching the whole run blind.
Common Failure Points
Flexible appliance connectors to a stove, dryer, or water heater have a service life. A common failure point is a fixture swapped with the old connector reused. Meter sets on older Pueblo County homes sometimes carry thread sealant never rated for current line pressure. Buried steel service lines corrode in the ground the same way anywhere else, showing up as a smell in the yard or dead grass in a straight line. Repairs beyond a simple connector swap are permitted work, and we pull those permits so the fix is documented and inspected.