Broken valve shuts down gas to nearly 600 homes in Coalville

COALVILLE — Questar is in the process of re-lighting gas to 590 homes after fixing a broken pressure regulator Friday that required crews to shut off gas services to the town for most of the morning and afternoon, officials said.

Summit County officials tweeted that it expects complete restoration of gas by 10 p.m.

Questar spokesman Darren Shepherd said the company began receiving calls from customers who had no heat at around 7 a.m. As crews worked to fix the problem, they discovered that the pressure regulator was broken and restricted gas flow to Coalville.

"We knew we had a problem and traced it to a locked up meter near a regulator station, which is used to reduce pressure from a high-pressure line down to a safe pressure for a community distribution system," Shepherd said.

In fixing the problem, crews were forced to turn off gas flow to all of the houses on the distribution system. Employees will go door to door to turn each meter back on and relight furnaces and water heaters at affected residences.

"This isn't something where if you have a gas outage, you just flip a switch and everybody's back on," Shepherd said. "We're going in one-by-one."

One concern in getting back gas service is the potential a homeowner is away on vacation or any seasonal homes, especially with the threat of frozen pipes.

Shepherd said Questar will be seeking access to those homes from either neighbors or relatives.

Anyone with problems or questions are encouraged to call Questar at 1-800-323-5517.

Red Cross was assisting by setting up a temporary shelter for residents at North Summit High School on 53 S. 100 East. The shelter will remain in place until the restoration is complete.

More information will be added as soon as becomes available.

Contributing: Dan Bammes

Related topics