Who Repairs the Gas Line — You or ONG? The Meter Decides
Oklahoma Natural Gas owns and maintains the gas line from the street main up to and including your meter. Everything past the meter is yours: the pipe running into the house, the buried yard line out to a detached garage or pool heater, and every appliance connector. The meter is the dividing line.
Which side of the meter is it on?
That single sentence settles most of the argument. The trouble starts when someone stands in your driveway and pretends the line is blurrier than it is. It isn't. There is a physical piece of hardware bolted to the side of your house that marks exactly where ONG's property ends and yours begins.
| Gas component | Whose side | Who repairs it |
|---|---|---|
| Service line from the street main to the meter | ONG's | ONG |
| The meter set itself | ONG's | ONG |
| Pipe from the meter into the house | Yours | A licensed plumber |
| Buried yard line to a detached garage, pool heater, or grill | Yours | A licensed plumber |
| Appliance connectors (water heater, furnace, range, dryer) | Yours | A licensed plumber |
The meter is the legal handoff, not just the physical one
ONG says it plainly on its own appliance-safety page: “Oklahoma Natural Gas maintains the natural gas service line from the natural gas main to the meter.” That is the whole run of pipe the utility is responsible for — from the distribution main under the street, across your yard if the meter sits away from the house, up to the meter set. If a leak or a corroded fitting is on that stretch, it is ONG's line to repair, and no plumber has any business billing you for it.
The fuel-gas code draws the same line with a different name. It calls the boundary the “point of delivery,” and for natural gas that point is the outlet of the service meter assembly. The code's coverage of the piping system starts there — at the meter — and runs to the shutoff valve at each appliance. Everything upstream of the meter is the utility's distribution system, outside the plumbing code entirely. Everything downstream is the piping a licensed plumber is allowed to touch.
Your side: more than the pipe in the wall
The homeowner's side is bigger than most people picture. ONG spells out the customer-owned side the same way: “It is the customer's responsibility to maintain all customer-owned natural gas equipment, including house piping, yard piping, appliances and appliance connectors.”
Yard piping catches people off guard. If your meter sits at the corner of the lot and gas runs underground to the house — or out to an outbuilding, a pool heater, or a grill stub — that buried line is yours, not ONG's. ONG puts it directly: “There may be natural gas piping between the meter and your house, or running to outbuildings or other outdoor appliances such as natural gas grills, lights, pool heaters, etc.” Buried steel corrodes. Federal pipeline-safety rules (49 CFR 192.16) state it flatly: “The operator does not maintain the customer's buried piping.” When that buried line needs work, the same federal rule names plumbing and heating contractors — not the gas company — as who repairs it.
If the piping on your side needs sizing work — say you added a high-BTU tankless unit that a half-inch line can't feed — that's a plumbing job on your side of the meter. We cover the math on the gas-lines hub; here the only point that matters is which side of the meter the pipe sits on.
The scam: billing you for ONG's side of the meter
Here is where boundary confusion turns into a charge on your invoice. A crew shows up, points at a suspect fitting somewhere between the street and the meter, and quotes you to “replace the gas service line.” That line is ONG's. Reporting it to ONG is the correct move, and the utility handles its own pipe. A crew that digs it up and bills you anyway is selling you the utility's property.
The same trick runs in reverse on a red-tag call. A single leaking joint on your house piping gets described as a rotted-out system, and the quote climbs into a whole-house repipe — one documented pitch reached $18,000 for a repipe that a segmented pressure test would have narrowed to one fitting. Whether the leak is on ONG's side or a single union on yours, the number is invented; the confusion about where the meter sits is what makes it stick.
We do the opposite
We do the opposite. Before anyone signs anything, we establish which side of the meter the fault is on. If it's upstream of the meter, the answer is a phone call to ONG, and there is nothing for us to bill. If it's on your side, we segment the piping, pressure-test it, and isolate the exact fitting — a repair, not a replacement. One long-time customer, Marty Brown, put the standard we hold to as being “truly interested in doing right by their customers,” and refusing to charge for the utility's pipe is part of that.
“…refreshing it is to deal with a service company that is truly interested in doing right by their customers…”
When to have your side looked at
You don't own the meter, so you never touch it. You do own the piping past it, and buried yard lines are the part most likely to sit forgotten until they corrode. ONG's guidance is direct: “Oklahoma Natural Gas recommends arranging the periodic inspection of any natural gas piping you own.” The utility will not do that inspection for you — that's the customer's side, so it's the customer's call to schedule it. If your gas smells like sulfur, leave first and call ONG to shut the meter; a pinpoint inspection of your piping comes after the immediate hazard is off.
If ONG has already shut and locked your meter, that's a separate situation with its own steps — we walk through it in the meter-lock section of our gas-lines page, and it does not mean you're headed for a whole-house repipe.
Straight answer, then the work
The boundary is not a judgment call. ONG's line ends at the meter; your line starts there. If you're not sure which side a leak sits on — or you've been quoted to replace pipe you may not even own — we'll establish the meter boundary first, then pressure-test and isolate the actual fault before anyone talks about replacing anything. Call or text us — 405-519-1868.
Questions homeowners ask
Report it and ONG handles its own service line — the run from the street main up to the meter is the utility's to maintain, in its own words. That side isn't a line item a plumber gets to add to your bill. A licensed plumber's work begins at the outlet of the meter and moves into the house.
The outlet of the meter set. The fuel-gas code calls that the “point of delivery.” Upstream of it is ONG's distribution system; downstream of it — house piping, buried yard lines, connectors, appliances — is yours. If you can trace a pipe back to the meter and it runs away from the street, you're looking at your own piping.
No. Everything upstream of the meter is the utility's regulated distribution line, outside the plumbing code's coverage. A plumber who offers to dig up and replace the pipe between the street and your meter is offering to bill you for ONG's property. The right step there is a call to ONG.
No. ONG recommends that you arrange periodic inspection of any piping you own, but it won't perform that inspection for you — your side of the meter is your responsibility. Buried yard lines to a garage or pool heater are the piece worth checking, since underground steel corrodes out of sight.
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