Smell Gas? What to Do Straight Away

Natural gas has no smell of its own. A strong odour is added to it, often described as rotten eggs or sulphur, so a leak is noticeable. If you notice it, the right response is calm and quick: reduce the risk of ignition, let the gas disperse and get the right people on their way.

What should you do if you smell gas?

Call 0800 111 999, the National Gas Emergency Service, as soon as you can do so safely. Turn off the gas at the meter if you can reach it easily, open doors and windows, and avoid anything that might create a spark. Get everyone out and wait outside for the emergency engineer.

1. Put out naked flames and do not smoke or light anything.
2. Do not use electrical switches, including lights, plugs, doorbells and thermostats. Leave them as they are, on or off.
3. Turn off the gas at the meter if the control lever is safe and easy to reach.
4. Open doors and windows to let the gas escape.
5. Leave the building and take everyone with you.
6. Call 0800 111 999 from outside or a neighbour's house, and follow the advice you are given.

What should you avoid doing?

Avoid anything that could ignite the gas or spread it. That means no switches, no flames, no mobile phone calls inside the property and no hunting around for the source. A small spark from a light switch or doorbell is enough to ignite gas at the wrong concentration, and the job of finding the leak belongs to the engineers.

Also avoid going back in to fetch belongings, and do not try to tighten fittings, disconnect a cooker or remove the casing from a boiler. Once you are outside, stay out until the emergency engineer says it is safe.

How do you turn off the gas at the meter?

Find the emergency control valve, a lever on the pipe next to your gas meter. Turn the lever so it sits at a right angle across the pipe. When it is in line with the pipe the gas is on, and when it is across the pipe the gas is off.

Meters are usually in an outside box, under the stairs, in a cellar or in a kitchen cupboard. In flats the meter may be in a shared cupboard or basement, and the lever may be locked. If the meter is somewhere that means walking further into the smell, or down into a cellar, do not go. Leave and let the emergency service deal with it. It is worth finding your meter and valve now, while there is no emergency.

What happens after you call 0800 111 999?

The call handler asks some safety questions and sends an emergency engineer. The service is free and runs day and night. When they arrive, they find the source of the escape, check whether gas is still leaking and make the installation safe, which may mean turning off and capping the supply to an appliance or the whole property.

If the leak is on the network side of your meter, they deal with it. If it is on pipework inside your home or from an appliance, their job ends at making it safe. They leave a warning notice and the supply stays off until a Gas Safe registered engineer has repaired and tested it. You can read more about the emergency service on the National Gas website.

Who repairs the leak once it has been made safe?

A Gas Safe registered engineer, and nobody else. It is illegal for anyone not on the register to work on gas pipework or appliances. The engineer traces the leak, repairs the pipe, joint or appliance connection, then carries out a tightness test on the whole installation before turning the gas back on and relighting appliances.

Common sources include loose or corroded joints on older pipework, worn flexible hoses on freestanding cookers and faults on appliances themselves. Where a cooker connection is the problem, our gas cooker installation service covers refitting it properly. Our gas leak repair work is charged at £90 per hour.

Could it be carbon monoxide instead?

Carbon monoxide has no smell at all, so a gas smell is not a carbon monoxide warning. The two need the same emergency call, though. If your CO alarm sounds, or people in the house have headaches, dizziness, nausea or breathlessness that ease when they go outside, open windows, turn off gas appliances, get out and call 0800 111 999. Seek medical advice for anyone who feels unwell.

Our guide to carbon monoxide alarms and your boiler explains where alarms should go and what the rules are for rented homes.

What if you smell gas at work or in a commercial kitchen?

The same steps apply, with one addition: if the kitchen has a gas emergency stop button, press it on your way out. It cuts the gas supply to the cooking appliances immediately. Our explanation of gas interlock systems covers how these controls work.

Getting a gas leak repaired in Stoke-on-Trent

Once the emergency service has made things safe, you need a Gas Safe registered engineer to find and fix the fault. We carry out gas leak repairs across Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, south Cheshire and Derbyshire, and our emergency boiler repair engineers can deal with a boiler that has been capped off. Call 07896 677083 with the warning notice to hand.

Regular servicing helps prevent problems on appliances in the first place. If your boiler has not been checked for a while, our annual boiler service in Stoke-on-Trent includes a check of the gas supply to the appliance.