What the meter and the gauge can tell you
Start with what the water district already gives you. A South Coast Water District meter sits in or near the sidewalk under a composite lid, and after 24 hours of uninterrupted use its display shows a dripping faucet. The district's follow-up test takes one valve: shut the house valve and look at the meter again. If it is still registering flow, the leak lies between the meter and the house. If it has stopped, the leak is somewhere indoors. From that point our instruments take over. Listening equipment set on a floor or a wall narrows an indoor leak to a spot, so the opening we make is a single small one in the right place.
Gas has no meter icon to consult, so the test is ours to set up. We disconnect the appliances, cap the piping and put it under air at a measured pressure. Then we wait. If the reading stays where it was set, the piping is sound and the smell has another source. If it sags, we close the valves one by one until the loss follows a single leg of the piping, then go over that leg's joints with an electronic detector and soap solution until bubbles give the fitting away. The suspects are few: the meter's regulator, a flex connector tucked in behind the range or the clothes dryer, the shutoff serving a furnace, a fireplace or the water heater, and any pipe that crosses the yard underground.
Dana Point adds a complication of its own: about 1,700 of its homes, some 11 percent, are kept for seasonal or occasional use. A leak there has nobody to notice it, and the first sign may be a water bill or a neighbor's phone call. If that is your house, close the house valve when you lock up, and ask whoever looks in on the place to check the meter display. Whichever leak it is, the repair is priced in writing first and carried out under our C-36 Plumbing license. A gas repair closes the way it opened, on the gauge, and you get the final reading on paper. If SoCalGas has shut the meter, repaired and tested piping is what lets the utility turn it back on.
On a leak call
- CSLB #1131308, the C-36 Plumbing license, which takes in gas piping as well as water
- A gas odor or running water treated as 24-hour emergency response
- The repair written up and accepted before any floor or wall comes open
- A workmanship warranty, written, on the leak we fix
Clues worth acting on
- The sulfur smell of gas near the meter, a range, a dryer or a water heater
- A faint hiss at a gas valve or connector when the room is quiet
- A dripping-faucet icon on a South Coast Water District meter
- A water or gas bill that rises while the house sits unused
- One warm patch of floor, or baseboard and carpet damp along a wall
- A red SoCalGas tag on the meter, the furnace or the water heater
Gas smell: outdoors before anything
Walk out of the building. Once you are on the street, phone SoCalGas or 911, and after that, us. For water, close the house valve if it is safe to reach. A person answers the phone at any hour.
Shrink the search
A gauge test on one leg of the gas piping after another, or the meter test followed by listening equipment on the water side, reduces a whole house of pipe to one run, and then to one place on it.
Rebuild what failed
New gas pipe is black steel or CSST; new water pipe is copper or PEX. Both go in to the plumbing code, and the rebuilt section is tested once more before it is closed in.
Sign-off and service back
Where a permit was needed, the inspector signs it off. Gas piping is left tested for SoCalGas to restore, and the water is turned on with the meter watched one last time.
How we work a leak in Dana Point
Finding a leak and repairing it are best done by one company under one license. Ours is C-36 Plumbing, and it takes in gas and water piping. Based in Dana Point, we follow four practices on every leak call in Orange County.
Gas work under the plumbing license
In California, gas piping belongs to the C-36 Plumbing classification. Every gas repair we make is checked against what the appliances on that line draw, then put under test pressure before the gas is turned back on.
The method fits the pipe
A gauge for gas piping as a whole, an electronic detector and soap solution for exposed joints, tracer gas for a buried line, and listening equipment for water under a floor or behind a wall. All of them come to the job, and the pipe decides which is used.
A red tag has a way out
A tag from SoCalGas names a fault. We repair that fault, test the piping and write the result down, and that record is what the utility needs in order to return and restore the gas.
Permits where the City asks for them
Dana Point takes every permit application through its eTRAKIT portal, and publishes separate handouts on underground gas piping and on gas load calculations. Where your repair needs a permit, we apply, attend the inspection and stay with it until the final.
What a leak repair involves, and why it varies
The size of the job depends first on where the leak turned out to be. A connector behind a range is reached by pulling the range out. Pipe inside a finished wall, under tile or beneath a concrete floor has to be uncovered, and the finish above it has to be put back.
It depends next on how much pipe is replaced and on the route. A gas line buried across a yard can be dug up, or abandoned in favor of a new run above ground. A water leak under a floor can be opened and repaired where it is, or the line can be rerouted through walls and ceiling; where one line has leaked before, the reroute is usually the better use of money. Some jobs also carry a permit, an inspection, or a return trip by SoCalGas to restore service; others carry none of them.
With the leak found, the repair is put in writing as a quote, and it starts when you have agreed to it.
Leak calls we take from Dana Point
Leak tracing is done from Dana Point for the whole of Orange County. Around us the water comes from several different suppliers, which changes what a meter looks like and whom you call about it.
Dana Point, both districts
South Coast Water District meters across most of the city and Moulton Niguel meters the remainder, in ZIP codes 92629 and 92624.
San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente
San Juan Capistrano, a Santa Margarita Water District customer from November 2021 on, and San Clemente, where a City inspection of 18,251 water service lines turned up no lead or galvanized line due for replacement.
Laguna Beach, Aliso Viejo and Laguna Hills
Laguna Beach, with the oldest housing of the seven places and a median build year of 1964; Aliso Viejo, where only 36 percent of homes are detached houses; and Laguna Hills, split between the Moulton Niguel and El Toro water districts.
Ladera Ranch and the county beyond
Ladera Ranch, where the owner's piping starts right after the Santa Margarita Water District's meter, and past it the other cities and communities we serve.
Five facts about gas and water leaks
Nobody finds a gas leak safely by sniffing for it. When the smell is there, walk everyone out without touching a switch or a flame, and phone SoCalGas or 911 once you are well away from the house. We are the third call, made after the utility has dealt with the danger.
The smell is an additive. Gas arrives odorless and the utility scents it so that leaks get noticed; treat even a faint, occasional odor as real until a gauge test has cleared the piping.
The meter test works on any supplier's meter, Moulton Niguel's included: with every fixture, appliance and irrigation valve off, movement on the dial is water leaving the pipe somewhere past it.
Whether a gas repair needs a permit depends on the work, and the City publishes a handout on what is exempt. When one is needed in Dana Point, the application goes through eTRAKIT, and we stay on it through inspection to the final.
A red tag comes off when its cause is gone. We repair what SoCalGas flagged, the piping passes its pressure test, and the utility comes back to restore service.
24/7 Emergency Plumbing
Water through a ceiling or a split line, whatever the hour.
Drain Cleaning & Hydro Jetting
Backed-up lines filmed and cleared to the pipe wall.
Water Heater Repair & Install
Tanks set with a new gas connector and a sediment trap.
Sewer Repair & Repipe
Laterals repaired, and supply lines that keep leaking replaced.
Gas odor: outdoors first, phone second
Make the call from the street, never from inside. For a gas or water leak in Dana Point or anywhere else in Orange County, 24-hour emergency response starts with that call.