What should I do if I smell gas near my fireplace?
You're on the natural-gas mains in most of Asheville, so leave the house right away, flip no switches and make no calls until you're standing outside, then dial your gas utility's emergency line or 911 from the yard. Because natural gas rises, a persistent rotten-egg smell usually lingers at head height. After the utility clears it, call us at (828) 545-0525.
Old masonry, added gas logs — where a leak hides
Around Montford, North Asheville, and Biltmore Village, a lot of the original masonry fireplaces we service have had a vented gas log set dropped in over the years. The valve, the flex connector, and the pilot assembly on an older set are the usual suspects for a slow seep — spiders and dust collect over the off-season and a marginal fitting starts to leak. Because Asheville is on the natural-gas main, that leak rises and you'll usually catch it at head height, which is exactly where to trust your nose.
Faint whiff versus the real thing
The rotten-egg odor is engineered on purpose — the fuel is odorized so your nose does the detecting. Here's the line to hold. A faint sulfur note the first time you light up in the fall, gone within a minute, is usually just dust burning off a burner that sat all summer. A smell that persists, gets stronger, or shows up with the fireplace stone-cold is not normal — that's a get-everyone-outside, call-from-the-driveway situation, not a wait-and-see one. Don't flip a switch or relight the pilot to burn it off.
Minutes away, and the fix is licensed
Your utility answers around the clock, checks the lines with a meter, and shuts the gas off at the street for free — but they stop at your property line and won't repair the fireplace or the house piping. In North Carolina that's licensed gas-contractor work, and it's our lane. Our showroom sits at 629 Emma Rd in West Asheville, so we're rarely more than fifteen minutes from a Buncombe County address. We locate the leak with instruments, repair it, pressure-test the line, and pull the permit when the job requires it. Call (828) 545-0525.
Fireplace help in Asheville
We install and service fireplaces throughout Asheville and the rest of Buncombe County — we're headquartered right here.
Related questions
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