A gas leak is the one topic on this site where the steps must come before the explanation: smell gas strongly, and the order is people out, flames and switches untouched, ventilation opened on the way, supply closed if the valve is reachable safely, and 1199 called from outside. Everything else this page says is detail around that sequence — read it now, in a calm moment, because the moment it's for is not a reading moment.
The smell hits the moment you open the front door — strong, unmistakable — and three instincts fire at once: find it, air it out, and flip on a light to see. One of those instincts is lethal.
The instincts that kill
Switches feel safe — but any spark, including a light switch, a doorbell, a phone call made indoors, can ignite an accumulated mixture.
People investigate first and evacuate later, spending the most dangerous minutes deepest inside the hazard.
Mild, chronic smells get normalised — the slow leak nobody reports is the one that meets a winter's sealed rooms.
One drilled sequence, household-wide: OUT first — everyone, immediately; NO sparks — no switches on or off, no flames, no phones indoors; AIR — doors and windows opened as you pass them on the way out; VALVE — meter or cylinder closed only if reachable without delay; CALL 1199 — from outside, and stay out until cleared.
The sequence, expanded
Evacuate. Everyone out through the nearest exit, opening doors and windows en route if they're on the way — children and elders first, possessions never.
No ignition. Touch no electrical switch in either direction, light nothing, and make the call only once outside — sparks, not the gas itself, are what turn a leak into an event.
Cut the supply if safe. The valve at the meter (or the cylinder's regulator, for LPG) closes the source — do it only if it's reachable in seconds without re-entering deep into the smell.
Call 1199 from outside — the Sui companies' emergency line — give the address clearly, and keep everyone (neighbours included, in shared buildings) out until the response team declares it clear.
After the emergency team leaves
The clearance is the start of the repair, not the end of the story. Whatever leaked — a fitting, a hose, an appliance, the company's own line — gets fixed before the supply runs normally again, and the split matters: the company's side (up to and including the meter) is its responsibility to repair; the house's side beyond the meter is yours, through a competent gas-fitter rather than the nearest enthusiast. Insist on a re-test of the repaired section, keep the visit's reference number if the company's team issued one, and replace rather than patch any hose or regulator past its prime — the few hundred rupees between a worn hose and a new one is the cheapest safety pricing on earth.
The slow leak, hunted on purpose
Faint, intermittent smell deserves deliberate hunting, not coexistence: soapy water brushed on joints and hoses bubbles at a leak; appliance connections, regulator seats and aging rubber are the usual suspects; and the meter itself offers a test — all appliances off, and a dial that still creeps is measuring a leak somewhere downstream. Anything found gets fixed properly, and anything you can't find but keep smelling is a 1199 call at non-emergency urgency — the companies attend reported smells, and 'it's probably nothing' is not a gas-safe sentence.
Winter compounds every risk on this page — heaters running overnight, rooms sealed against cold, geysers in enclosed spaces — and the carbon-monoxide hazard of poorly ventilated combustion is a sibling danger to leaks: ventilation gaps for any room where gas burns, every night, no exceptions.
Prevention that takes one weekend
Walk the house once: every hose flexible and crack-free, every regulator seated, every joint soap-tested — and a calendar note to repeat each year before heater season.
Teach the sequence to everyone who can open a door — children included; the drill is five sentences, and the household where everyone knows it is the household that exits in seconds.
Heaters and geysers get ventilation by design, not by luck: a fixed gap, a checked flue, and never a sealed room with a flame in it overnight.
LPG households apply everything here to the cylinder: upright, outside or ventilated, regulator sound, and the same soap test at every refill's reconnection.
Low pressure, billing tangles and the rest of gas’s ordinary frustrations have their own pages — this one’s only job is the sequence, and the complaint guide waits for problems that can wait.
Drill it once, own it forever
Gas safety in Pakistan is mostly invisible competence: the annual hose check, the ventilation gap, the household that knows OUT–NO SPARKS–AIR–VALVE–1199 the way it knows its own address. None of it costs real money and none of it is hard — it's simply decided in advance, the way this page was read in advance. Do the weekend walk-through, run the five-sentence drill at dinner, and file this page's sequence where the family's memory keeps fire and earthquake: rehearsed, and hopefully never performed.
Frequently Asked Questions
1199 — the Sui companies' emergency and complaint line, from either company's territory. Call from outside the building, give the address first, and stay out until the team clears re-entry.
Because switches spark in both directions — off is as dangerous as on in a gas atmosphere. Leave every electrical state exactly as it is and put distance between people and the air instead.
Make the call outside — phones are a spark risk in a concentrated mixture, and the seconds saved calling indoors protect nothing worth the trade. Out first, then dial.
Soapy water on joints and hoses (bubbles mark the leak) and the meter test — all appliances off, any dial movement means gas is escaping somewhere. Find-and-fix properly, or report the smell to 1199 if it persists unfound.
The company maintains its side up to and including the meter; everything downstream — house piping, hoses, appliances — is the household's, repaired by a competent fitter and re-tested. The emergency response itself is not something you're billed for calling.