Smell gas in your house? What to do right now, and what happens next

A gas smell in the house is one of those things that puts people on edge, and it should. It also tends to make people freeze rather than act, unsure whether to open a window, check the stove, or call someone straight away. Here is a clear, general guide to what to do if you smell gas, what a licensed gas fitter actually does when they arrive, and what tends to cause it in Redlands homes.

If you smell gas, act calmly but act now

The general safety guidance for a suspected gas leak is the same wherever you are, and it is worth knowing before you ever need it.

The theme across all of this is the same: reduce anything that could ignite gas, and get distance between yourself and the source while you sort out what to do next.

• Leave the area. Get yourself and anyone else out of the house or the immediate area where the smell is strongest.
• Do not flick any electrical switches. Do not turn lights on or off, do not use a garage door opener, and do not use anything that could create a spark, including your phone, while you are still near the source.
• Do not light anything. No matches, lighters, candles, or gas appliances.
• If it is safe to do so, turn off the gas at the meter or at the bottle. Most Redlands homes have either a mains gas meter with a shut-off valve or LPG bottles with their own isolation valve. Only do this if you can reach it quickly and safely without walking back through a strong gas smell.
• Move to fresh air and call from outside. Once you are clear of the area, call for help from a safe distance, not from inside the house.
• If there is a fire, call emergency services immediately. A gas leak with fire or a strong risk of fire is an emergency services situation first, plumber second.

What not to do

• Do not go looking for the leak with a lighter or a match to "test" it.
• Do not assume it is minor and will clear on its own if the smell is strong or persistent.
• Do not try to repair a gas fitting or appliance yourself. Gas work in Queensland legally requires a licensed gas fitter, and for good reason.
• Do not ignore a faint, occasional smell on the assumption it is nothing. A small leak can still be a real leak.

Common causes we find in Redlands homes

Every home is different, and a proper inspection is the only way to know for certain what is happening in yours, but some causes come up repeatedly across the suburbs we work in.

None of these are things to diagnose yourself. The smell tells you something is wrong; finding exactly what and where is a job for a licensed gas fitter with the right equipment.

• Loose or degraded fittings on gas appliances, particularly older stoves and gas hot water units that have not been serviced in years.
• Ageing gas lines, especially in older homes where the original fittings have not been touched since installation.
• LPG bottle connections that have loosened or where the seal has degraded, common in suburbs like Mount Cotton and Sheldon where LPG bottles are more common than reticulated gas.
• A pilot light or appliance fault on an ageing gas hot water unit or heater, rather than a line leak at all.
• Accidental damage to a gas line during other work around the property, such as landscaping or fencing near a buried line.

What a licensed gas fitter actually does

When we attend a suspected gas leak, the process is methodical, not guesswork.

This is the same process whether the fault turns out to be a loose fitting that takes twenty minutes, or a line that needs a more involved repair.

• 1. Initial safety check. We confirm it is safe to proceed and identify whether gas is currently isolated or still flowing.
• 2. Pressure test. A gas pressure test checks whether the system is holding pressure as it should, which tells us whether there is a leak in the system at all, separate from just relying on smell.
• 3. Locate the leak. Using leak detection equipment and a methodical check of fittings, joints, appliances and visible line, we narrow down exactly where the leak is coming from.
• 4. Repair. Once located, the faulty fitting, joint or section of line is repaired or replaced. Our gas leak repair service covers this end to end.
• 5. Retest. After the repair, the system is pressure tested again to confirm the leak is actually fixed, not just quieter.
• 6. Compliance certificate. Gas work in Queensland requires the work to be certified. You get documentation that the repair was carried out to the required standard by a licensed gas fitter, which matters for insurance and for any future sale of the property.

After the repair: what changes going forward

Once a leak has been repaired and certified, it is worth thinking about what reduces the chance of it happening again. Ageing gas appliances and fittings that have never been serviced are the most common repeat offenders, so a periodic check of gas appliances, particularly older gas hot water units and heaters, is a sensible habit rather than waiting for the next smell to prompt a call. If your home runs on LPG bottles, checking the bottle connections and hose condition periodically is worth doing as part of general upkeep, since these fittings are exposed to the weather and degrade over time in a way that reticulated gas connections generally do not.

Why licensed gas work matters

Gas fitting is licensed work in Queensland for a reason. An unlicensed repair, even a well-intentioned one, can leave a fitting that looks fine but is not sealed correctly, which is a worse outcome than the original fault because it looks resolved. Dave holds Gas Licence L91032 and QBCC 53736, and every gas job gets a compliance certificate on completion, whether it is a leak repair, a gas line installation, or a new gas appliance installation.

What this costs

Gas leak call-outs are treated as urgent work, and pricing depends on what is found and what repair is needed. Simple fitting repairs are often within our general emergency job range of $250 to $600, while more involved line work is quoted separately once the leak is located. You hear the price before any repair starts. General gas fitting work outside of an emergency situation is priced the same way — clearly, before we begin.

When to call a plumber

A gas smell is never something to sit on. Even a leak that seems minor is worth a proper pressure test and inspection, because the point of the test is to confirm what you cannot tell just by sniffing around the kitchen.

• You smell gas anywhere in or around the house, even faintly.
• A gas appliance's pilot light will not stay lit or behaves unusually.
• You notice a hissing sound near a gas line, meter or bottle connection.
• Plants near a buried gas line look unexpectedly dead or discoloured.
• It has been years since your gas appliances or lines were last checked.

Get it checked properly

If you smell gas, get clear of the area, avoid anything that could spark, and call from a safe distance. For everything from a suspected leak to a full gas hot water or appliance install, call Dave on 0409 364 858, licensed and insured, serving Cleveland, Wellington Point and right across the Redlands and Brisbane bayside. Lifetime workmanship guarantee: it works when we leave, or we come back and fix it.