Gas Employees Working Near Your Home or Business

UniSource gas employees work in your neighborhood throughout the year to continue providing safe and reliable service.

About 80 percent of all gas meters are located on customer property. Recurring safety inspections and routine maintenance performed by our employees require access to the natural gas meter and underground piping on your property. Our employees must be able to safely reach this equipment to properly assesses its condition and perform work.

Identifying UniSource employees

We value the safety of our customers and our employees. How can you identify UniSource gas employees working near your home or business?

• Look for the UniSource logo on the employee’s clothing, safety equipment and vehicle.
• Ask to see the employee’s identification. All employees are required to show their ID badge when asked.
• Call UniSource directly to verify the employee’s identity and reason for work in the area. Our number is 877-837-4968 – the same number listed on your monthly natural gas bill.

For more information about spotting scammers who might try to impersonate UniSource employees, visit our scam awareness page.

Reasons for access

UniSource gas field employees might need to access your property while performing several duties that can occur at any time. These include:

• Reading meters and checking meter accuracy.
• Performing scheduled and emergency leak investigations with special equipment, and performing leak repairs.
• Verifying company and customer gas system pressure.
• Inspecting meters and piping for signs of corrosion. Meters and piping are painted to protect from corrosion.
• Locating underground gas facilities in response to requests from the Arizona 811 center. In some cases, we might need to attach locating equipment to your gas meter in order to find a nearby buried gas line.
• Exchanging natural gas meters.
• Replacing faulty equipment.
• Performing tests to verify natural gas is adequately odorized. Natural gas naturally has no odor, so a sulfur-like odor similar to rotten eggs is added to the natural gas supply.

Click here to learn more about UniSource’s rules and regulations for gas operations.

UniSource gas also maintains a Damage Prevention Program in accordance with state and federal guidelines. Through education and awareness, this program helps to prevent damage to our pipelines and facilities from excavation work such as digging, trenching, blasting, boring, tunneling, backfilling and other digging activities. Customers are encouraged to call 811 so that local utilities including UniSource can locate underground facilities at no cost.

Meter location

Natural gas meters are installed in a variety of locations – at the edge of a customers’ property, on the sides of buildings, in alleys, and inside fences or backyards.

To help ensure safe and reliable service, please make sure that your meter is free of obstructions and accessible to our employees.

Overgrown vegetation, new structures or debris can make meters and piping hard to find for our employees. Please refer to Section G of UniSource Gas Rules and Regulations, which states:

• The Customer is responsible for providing safe access to Company facilities. The Company’s authorized agents will have satisfactory unassisted twenty-four (24) hour a day, seven (7) days a week access to the Company’s equipment located on Customer’s premise for the purpose of service connection, service disconnection, operation, maintenance, repair and service restoration work that the Company may need to perform.

More natural gas safety

• Recognize the signs of a natural gas leak. If you smell gas or spot any unsafe condition, call 911 and UniSource at 1-877-837-4968.
• Call 811 before starting any underground construction, including on or outside your property.
• Help keep our crews safe by driving safely in work zones.
• Learn more great natural gas safety tips.