HomeServe Helps CenterPoint Energy Keep the Gas Light On

A storm blew through Ridgeland, Mississippi, and Patti F. knew that she’d need to re-light her gas lamp.

The lamps were required in her housing development, and all the homes on Patti’s street had one. Some of her neighbors had maintenance issues with their lamps, letting them go dark, but Patti liked the curb appeal it added to her home.

“Several of the lanterns don’t work, but we’ve gone the extra mile to make sure that ours does,” she said.

“I could have come up with the money, but why would I want to?”

Patti’s lamp required a continuous feed of gas – and therefore, its own dedicated gas line – to operate, and Patti was well accustomed to needing to re-light it when wind or rain extinguished it.

An Unexpected Problem with the Gas Line

Only there was a problem this time after the storm came through: the lamp wouldn’t re-light. Additionally, she could hear the burbling as gas from the line that fed the lamp was escaping through her yard. Patti immediately knew what the problem was: The gas line feeding the lamp was leaking.

“We could hear the bubbling of the gas trying to come out and see where there was a leak,” she said.

Patti dealt with this same issue a few months before, so she wasn’t caught by surprise. Luckily, she had a HomeServe gas line repair plan, so all she needed to do was to make one call to our U.S.-based call center and a plumber would be dispatched to Patti’s home to deal with her issue.

“[The call center] was very, very good and my issue got handled very quickly,” she said.

A HomeServe Repair Plan Comes in Handy

Patti had enrolled in HomeServe’s programs through HomeServe’s partnership with her gas company, CenterPoint Mississippi, and she’d already utilized her plan once before, saving nearly $600 when DrainGo Plumbing of Mississippi repaired a threaded gas connection that went to the line feeding the lamp.

“Because of incidents like [the lamp gas line leak], it made me think that there could be other issues with the gas line in the future,” she said, adding that she was “absolutely” glad that CenterPoint partnered with HomeServe to offer this service. “Not having it would have cost us a good bit of money to get it fixed.”

As the country struggles with a skilled labor gap, finding a qualified, licensed and insured plumber isn’t just a matter of scrolling through phone numbers anymore. Because she had a HomeServe repair plan, Patti didn’t need to worry about finding, vetting and scheduling a plumber – HomeServe did it for her in an expeditious manner.

“It was very quick,” Patti said. “It wasn’t very long at all.”

This time, One Call Plumbing and Gas Service came to Patti’s home and replaced the defective portion of the gas line between her meter and her lamp, resolving the problem. Because Patti had a HomeServe repair plan, she saved nearly $1,000 on the repair.

“I could have come up with the money, but why would I want to?” Patti asked.