What to Do If You Smell Gas Edit page

If you ever smell gas in your condo, here’s what you should do:

• First, leave the area immediately. In its untouched state, natural gas is actually odorless. For safety reasons, Southwest Gas injects an element into the gas which emits an odor similar to sulfur or rotten eggs, so if you smell that, get out right away.
• Tell others in your building to evacuate, too, and leave doors and windows open.
• Don’t  do anything that could cause a spark. In other words, don’t smoke or use matches or lighters near the building, don’t turn on or off any electric switches, thermostats, or appliance controls, and don’t start or stop an engine or use automated garage doors.
• Once you are in a safe location, call 911 and Southwest Gas at 877-860-6020, day or night.  A Southwest Gas representative will be there as soon as possible to check out the situation and turn off the gas.
• Immediately after contacting Southwest Gas, contact Julie Grommes, our Community Manager, at 480-396-4567. When you report the suspected gas leak, Management will advise the board and reference the governing documents for what portion of the repair would be covered by the Association. We have contractors and other resources available to help with the situation. The sooner you let us know about the situation, the sooner we can get you back in your condo with the least amount of disruption. If the leak is caused by a gas fitting, the HOA would pay for the repair/replacement of the gas fitting and would cover the cost to repair the drywall removed to access the defective fitting. Painting, etc., would be the responsibility of the unit owner.

We want to stress that a gas fitting failure is highly unusual and extremely rare. We don’t expect that it will happen in any units, but that’s not to say that it won’t. We just don’t know. If you are concerned, though, there are plug-in natural gas detectors that you can purchase online or in most hardware stores. Some also detect carbon monoxide.