How can you tell you have a gas leak in your home?

Question

and what should you do if there is one?

Answer 1

Use your nose to smell the leaking gas.  Call your gas provider and thet will send someone out to check for leaks.  This service is free.

Answer 2

This document describes how to find gas leaks on LP or natural gas piping, regulators, or appliances, and it provides; http://www.inspect-ny.com/plumbing/gasfa...

The smell of an odorant called percaptain is added to Natural and Liquified Petrolium Gases, it stinks and some say smells like rotten eggs. If you do smell something of this description, do not turn any lights on or off! Leave your house and call your gas supplier. They will send someone any time to check and give a solution to the problem.

Answer 3

Call a qualified professional, messing with gas can be dangerous! It should stink like rotten eggs.

but..

If you have an older style meter, shut down all the appliances (including the pilot lights) and mark the smallest dial on the meter with a pen. Wait an hour and see if the dial has moved. If it has - call a professional in ASAP!

Answer 4

Have your utility co determine if there's a leak and then call a plumber to fix it

Answer 5

You can smell it.  You can use soap and water mixture to spray on the area you think might be leaking, but the gas company is the pros; call them.

Answer 6

Turn on several gas appliances, or maybe just a cooktop if it's gas, all the way and go look at your gas meter, just to see how the indicators on the dials turn. Then turn off all the gas appliances. Make sure those with pilot lights are turned off so the flame goes out. Then look at your meter. If any of the dials are turning, or move at all in 20 minutes, then you're using gas somewhere.

Call your gas company.

There are so many potential problems and dangers with gas lines and appliances that they'll respond to your questions, especially about anything that can be dangerous like leaks. If you have a leak, they'll come out with a 'sniffer' and find it. It's built into the price of the service -- ie, they don't charge extra for any of it. They'll even do minor repairs for free,

Good luck.