Utility Work

Our utility provider has had a contractor working in our area for several weeks, replacing and rerouting the gas main that runs under our street. So far the inconvenience has been limited to occasional road closings, and when that happens there is always a detour available.

Last week we got a notice in our mailbox that the contractor would need access to our basement in order to connect the house to the new line, and after that the utility company would have to come into the basement and both units to relight all the pilots. We were instructed to call the foreman to arrange a time for this work. I set up our appointment for today.

The crew started digging around 8 am, for both our house and the one next door. As of 4 pm they are still at it. I had no idea this would be an all-day process; when I was told the contractor needed access to our basement, I assumed it was to do something that would take only a short amount of time. But there's a trench from the middle of the street right up to our front steps, where the gas line connects to the building.

It's not like I need to be anywhere, but it does mean that we don't have any gas service at the moment, and I don't know if we'll be able to get it restored today after the workers are finished—if they do finish today. And as an incidental consequence of the work being done, we're unable to get out of our driveway.

Update: We got our gas service back, but we had to call to get someone to come out. The regular National Grid customer service line operates only from 7 am to 5 pm weekdays, so I pushed the button for "gas emergency" and explained what was going on to the phone rep, which got the results I needed. The tech who showed up told me that the contractors are notoriously unreliable about remembering to call for service to be renewed after they've finished their work, which is good to know for future reference.