Gas - who do you contact if you want a new supply from the road ?

Somerset

Title is a bit misleading but I'll explain.

I have a flat in a house. There are four flats in the whole house and none of them have gas. I never enquired about getting gas in as I thought it be would be prohibitively expensive ( the other's aren't bothered ). It would have to be taken over a driveway into the house. Today I was there with the plumber, as I'm changing the flat around, and in a cupboard on the external wall, he said 'there's an old gas pipe'. Now he wasn't sure if it was gas or water and said he wasn't going to uncap it to find out :eek: He then explained that if it was gas, the gas people use the existing pipework to slip a new pipe inside, but it means no digging etc etc so the cost of getting reconnected would be way lower.

So if it's a gas pipe, great, I might be able to get gas. But who I contact to find out if the house had gas and come and inspect whether this is a gas-pipe? Obviously not any of the suppliers - we have no supply, but whoever has records of the grids or whatever ? Sorry not sure of the terminlogy here. Many thanks.

devils_spawn

You should be able to find your answers here

Somerset

Thanks for that. Rang them. they don't cover me but gave me the number for Wales&West that do. Spoke to a nice woman at W&W who will organise a visit for me - told her I wasn't sure it was a gas-pipe but because it was 'capped' it sounds like it might be. They have to determine if it's live or dead. Also the house definitely isn't showing on their 'grid'. So we'll see what happens.

Premier_2

We did this a few years ago (although we knew for certain it was a gas supply pipe we had)

We just went to the gas supply company (e.g. British Gas) and asked for a connection. They first quoted (informal) horrendous amounts until we said again that an existing supply pipe was available. They then said, after a few ums & ahs, it was free and they did all the negotiation with transco (now called national grid)

Transco did all the installation work up to & including the meter. This was a plastic liner fitted to the existing pipe. If the existing pipe was too small to fit the plastic pipe, an installation charge would have been made they told us.

Transco came out to carry out preliminary inspection and then set a date shortly thereafter to come back and do the actual work.

All arranged through the gas supplier (British Gas). No charge. :T