Gas leak detection and repair
FortisBC owns the gas supply up to and including your meter, and they respond to gas emergencies as a utility. They can shut off supply at the meter and make the immediate situation safe faster than any contractor.
We handle what comes after — finding the leak in your building's piping and appliances, repairing it, and getting it inspected.
⚠️ That order matters and we won't reverse it for conversion. Any plumbing company that puts its own number ahead of the utility's on a gas leak page is putting its lead ahead of your safety.
What natural gas smells like
Natural gas is odourless. The sulphur or rotten-egg smell is an additive put in specifically so you notice it.
⚠️ Some people can't smell it — a reduced sense of smell, a cold, or simply being used to it. That's one reason a gas detector in the home is worth having alongside your CO alarm.
The other signs
A hissing or whistling sound near a gas line or appliance. Dead or dying vegetation in a line over a buried gas line, with no other explanation. Bubbling in standing water or wet ground near a buried line. A gas bill that's risen with no change in usage. Physical symptoms that improve when you leave the building — headaches, dizziness, nausea. A pilot light that repeatedly goes out.
⚠️ Carbon monoxide is a different thing
Gas leaks and carbon monoxide are not the same problem.
A gas leak is unburned natural gas escaping — you can smell it because of the additive, and the risk is fire and explosion.
Carbon monoxide is a combustion by-product, produced when an appliance burns fuel incompletely or vents improperly. It has no smell at all.
You cannot detect CO by nose. Every home with gas appliances needs a working CO alarm.
⚠️ If your CO alarm sounds: leave the building and call 911 from outside. Don't investigate, don't open windows first, don't try to decide whether it's a false alarm. Leave.
What we do
Detection. Electronic gas detectors, a pressure test on the system to confirm whether there's a leak at all, and section-by-section isolation to locate it. Combustion analysis on appliances where the concern is an appliance rather than a line.
Repair. Replacing failed sections, fittings or valves, then pressure and leak testing the repaired system.
Inspection. The permit and inspection where the work requires it.
A written report with what was found, what was done, and the test results.
Common causes
Failed fittings and connections, particularly older ones. Corrosion on buried or exposed lines. ⚠️ More common on buried lines in wet ground — Richmond, Queensborough, low-lying Tri-Cities. Appliance connectors at end of life, especially older flexible connectors. Damage from renovation, digging, or something moving that shouldn't have. Valves that no longer seat properly. Abandoned lines capped rather than removed, sometimes decades ago.
Our scope: Gas appliances up to 120 kW (about 400,000 BTU/h) input. All residential and most light commercial. Larger central plant needs a Class A gas fitter.
What it costs
repair quoted after the leak is located · no after-hours premium
⚠️ We don't quote a gas repair before finding the leak, because nobody honestly can.
