Restoring Natural Gas Outages

Natural gas outages are rare, but they do happen. The process of restoring a natural gas outage is different than restoring an electric outage. While the basic principles are the same, there is one significant difference. A natural gas outage requires our employees to make two visits to your home or business.

What causes an outage?

There are two types of natural gas outages, planned and unplanned.

Planned outages allow us to perform necessary maintenance or upgrade our system. We notify members before planned outages occur. To make sure you receive this type of notification, check your preferred “contact methods” in SmartHub. Verify we have the correct phone numbers, and that you are not on our ‘do not call’ list. We may also communicate planned outages on social media or myenergycoop.com, depending on the size and scope of the work. You might even see information left on your doorstep alerting you of the outage.

Planned outages give everyone time to prepare. Unplanned outages are a different story. They occur when someone not affiliated with The Energy Cooperative hits one of our gas lines while digging, or there is some other kind of interruption in the gas flow.

How we respond

1. The Energy Cooperative employees visit impacted homes and businesses to shut off natural gas service. We do not need access to your home to turn off the gas, but we do need clear access to your meter.
2. Our crews make necessary repairs to the natural gas main and/or service lines.
3. We visit each home and business (a second time) to safely restore natural gas service. If no one is home when we arrive, our crews leave a door tag with more information.

Turning your gas on

1. Someone over the age of 18 must be present for us to restore natural gas service.
2. It is important to check for natural gas leaks. Our employees cannot restore natural gas service if they find a leak. In this case, our technicians explain necessary steps for us to restore your service.
3. We perform a safety inspection of your natural gas appliances. Our employees cannot relight appliances if they fail our safety check.

We’ve got you covered.

Want to see our ID? Just ask. Our employees will arrive in an Energy Cooperative truck, and have a company ID. If you have any questions or concerns, give us a call at 1-800-255-6815. Our member service representatives can verify one of our employees is at your home. Your safety is important to us!

We want all our members to stay warm and cozy during the cold, winter months. While gas outages do happen, we work extremely hard to avoid them. If you find yourself experiencing a natural gas outage, rest easy. We’ve got you covered. Our crews continue to work until all our members have their natural gas service restored.