How to find gas lines on your property
First question: is there a gas main in your street at all?
Reticulated natural gas in New Zealand runs in the North Island only, so many addresses have no gas main at all. Where there is one, the distributor owns the main and the service pipe up to your meter, and holds the plans for both. Pipework beyond the meter is yours and appears on no network plan.
Type your address to see who serves itOpen the mapCheck whether your street has a gas main
Reticulated natural gas is a North Island network. South Island properties that use gas are almost always on bottled or bulk LPG, which is a private installation rather than a distribution network.
If no distributor serves your address, there is no gas main to find - but there may still be a private LPG line between a tank and the house.
Identify the distributor, not your retailer
The company that bills you for gas is a retailer. The company that owns the pipes in the ground is a distributor, and only the distributor holds network plans. They are usually different organisations.
Find the gas distributor for your address in the directory below.
Request plans or a locate from the distributor
Distributors handle locate requests directly and through beforeUdig. Ask for the main and the service pipe to your meter - they are separate assets and a plan showing one may not show the other.
Find your meter and work backwards
The service pipe runs from the main to your meter, usually taking the shortest sensible route from the street. Locating the meter narrows the search corridor considerably, though the actual alignment still needs confirming.
Treat gas as the one you never guess at
A gas strike is dangerous immediately, not eventually. Have the line located and marked before any mechanical excavation, and agree the method for exposing it with the distributor first - non-invasive detection, hand digging and hydro excavation are all used, and they will tell you what they want near their asset.
If you do strike a gas line: stop work, keep people clear, avoid anything that could ignite it including vehicles and phones, and call the distributor's emergency number. Do not attempt to repair or crimp it yourself.
See who serves your address before you request anything.
Pin your worksite and UtilityFinder shows every operator whose network reaches it, with contact details and locate-request links in one place.
Gas distributors in New Zealand
Reticulated natural gas distributors by region. Open an operator for contact details, their locate-request link and their emergency number.
Waikato
3 operators
Bay of Plenty
4 operators
Hawke's Bay
2 operatorsTaranaki
13 operators
Not sure which of these serve your address? Pin your worksite on the map and UtilityFinder will narrow it down for you.
What the records won't tell you
- Plans cover the distributor's main and the service pipe to your meter. Everything past the meter is private and unmapped.
- LPG installations - tanks, buried lines, bottle manifolds - belong to the property owner and appear on no network plan.
- Service pipe alignments between main and meter are often approximate rather than surveyed.
- A street with no live main today can still contain abandoned or decommissioned pipe.
Every plan you get back is indicative. Records show where an asset was recorded, not where it is today - so treat a plan as a reason to dig carefully, never as permission to dig confidently.
Common questions
- Is there natural gas at my address in New Zealand?
- Only if you are in the North Island and a distributor's network reaches your street. There is no reticulated natural gas network in the South Island, where gas is supplied as bottled or bulk LPG.
- What should I do if I hit a gas line?
- Stop immediately, move people away and upwind, keep all ignition sources including engines and phones clear of the area, and call the distributor's 24-hour emergency number. Do not try to repair or seal the pipe.
- Who owns the gas pipe on my property?
- The distributor generally owns the service pipe up to and including the meter. Pipework from the meter into the house is the property owner's responsibility.
Keep going
How to find utility lines on your property
Six different services, six different owners, six different requests.
How to find underground power cables on your property
The network cable is recorded. The one running to your shed almost certainly isn't.
How to find water mains on your property (NZ)
Where the public main sits, where your private pipe takes over, and who to ask for each.
Utility markout colours in New Zealand
Yellow means gas - the full NZ colour code for spray-painted service marks, illustrated.
How to safely locate underground utilities
Plan search, site recon, non-invasive detection and verification, step by step.
See what's underground at your address.
UtilityFinder maps NZ utility operators on a single interactive map. Pin your worksite and start your plan search in seconds.