Came home the other day, found a note on the front door. “Your gas has been turned off due to a suspected leak. Call us to arrange an inspection. Love, Oklahoma Natural Gas.” Turns out, ONG has a courtesy service where they automatically shut your gas off when your bill hits a certain number. Apparently that number is around $500.

ONG was called and the night shift fellow (who was quite friendly) stopped by. He checked our meter and found a tiny leak — so small, it may be costing us $2/month. The real problem, as determined by “the guy”, is that when our air conditioner was fixed last summer, they crossed the wiring somehow, which causes our heater and furnace to cycle continually. This makes the gas heater fire up whether or not we turn on the heat, or the A/C. In fact, while he was there we looked at the heater, which was on and blowing heat at full blast while our air conditioner was fighting it to cool the house.

To fix the leak at the meter, the guy said they would be sending out a construction crew to dig up the back yard. Apparently the leak is underground, somewhere between the meter and the house. The solution for this is to dig everything up and move the meter next to the house. This is done free of charge, which is fortunate as I wouldn’t pay much to stop a $2/month leak. The part I’m looking forward to the most (sarcasm to follow) is the fact that our cable runs there as well, which I fully expect them to sever — I also expect this to happen on or around Saturday, the day of my gaming party at the house. I am already planning on not having cable television, cable modem, or telephone (which we also get via cable) for the weekend. I’d bet money on not having it this weekend.

As for the heater fix, it’s going to have to wait until next week. Based on co-worker advice (and a late call to Andy) I killed the gas going to the heater (at least we still have hot water). In theory that should stop the leak until we can call Dahl’s Heat and Air back out, show them our bill over the past few months, and beg for repairs.