Connection to mains gas

paddond

Hi,

Hope some one can help me, we are about to move into a house that hasn't got mains gas into it. There is a gas main in the pavement on outside the front of the house, and then there is a 5M driveway from the pavement to the front of the house. Any ideas of a very rough figure as to how much it costs to get connected to the mains, and how long it takes? We're in Bristol, so I guess that means we have to use Wales and West utilities to get connected.

Thanks in advance.

Hillfly

It cost me about £350 and took about a month form start to finish. That was in Kent.

paddond

Thanks for the reply

HugoSP

It cost me a similar figure to have a property that was straight onto the main road connected.

You can opt to save money if you agree to dig, and backfill your own trench within your property. It's only really worth considering this if the pipe is to be laid in soft ground. If it needs to be laid under the drive and you want the tarmac or whatever to be reinstated it may work out cheaper to get them to do the whole lot.

If you do opt to dig and backfill your own trench then it must be a minimum of 18" or 450mm below ground level at any point. Also when you backfill use a bit of builing sand around the pipe to protect it against sharp objects etc. They will also give you yellow tape. This should then be laid on top of the sand layer before you backfill the rest of the trench.

I have used a mini digger to dig out one trench and hand dug another. It will cost around £100 to hire a mini digger for a weekend, but a 5 metre trech will not take you all weekend, more like half a day if you can get the hang of it.

If you do go down the mini digger route and have other landscaping asparations, it may be worth hiring the digger and doing it all at the same time.

dda_iawn

I just had a quote for £659 from national grid. Their webbased system will give you a quote which they then send to your email. This price is for a 12 metre connection to a semi detached house I own, where I've asked them to dig the trench.

google national grid new gas connections to get to the site - I'd post a link but the system won't let me.

Filling in the form is a bit buggy with endless guessing games around getting a password with special characters, at least one cap and one lower case. I even tried ringing them about it because I got caught in a loop and was told that the only way to apply for a quote for a connection is via the net.

dda_iawn

Just to update on this. National Grid have you over a barrel because practically there isn't anyone else who can install mains gas. I wish I had realised they didn't install meters. Power providers want a MPRN (meter point reference number) before they will install a meter. To apply for a connexion with N grid you have no choice but to use their online system which has seemingly been designed to frustrate customers. Every time I have tried to log on for progress their system won't accept my password so you end up ringing them - 0870 903 9999 (08.00 – 18.00 Mon-Fri).

There are established maximum timelines but my experience so far has been that these aren't kept to.