They finished replacing the gas service to my house today. There were
apparently no leaks and the only appliance that needed relighting was the
water heater. One of the crew members was nice enough to light it for me
and made sure I tested my stove, furnace and dryer. Everything worked fine.

The crew was as nice as I expected them to be based on our previous
conversations. They offered me options for the placement of my meter and
even did a little landscaping for me. Allow me to explain...

My meter is on the side of my house, about 3 feet from the front corner.
The pipe into the house comes out of the meter, wraps around the corner to
the front of the house and enters through the block foundation. There are
bushes across the front of the house which wrap around the corner and hide
the meter. Unfortunately, they also overhang a portion of the walkway along
the side of the house. For the past few years, SWMBO and I have talked
about ripping out all of the bushes and building a raised planter out of
landscaping blocks so she can add even more plants to our lot. Things keep
coming up, the season ends and we go another year without changing
anything.

So the crew chief rings my bell at 7 this morning and asks me to come
outside. He points to the meter behind the bush, states that the riser I
have is no longer to code and that they have to dig it out and replace it.
Based on the locations of the bases of the bushes, they can either move the
meter to the front where the pipe enters the house or they will have to rip
out the 3 bushes that round the corner.

It took me about 1/2 second to tell them to leave the meter where it is and
rip out the bushes. They appeared a bit surprised that I answered so
quickly, but I told them that my wife and I had already talked about it and
we were kind of hoping that they would tell us the bushes had to go. We
hoped it would get us kick started for our landscaping project next spring.
They laughed, said OK and started up the excavator.

After they were done I grabbed a bottle of vinyl siding cleaner, scrubbed
the green crap off of the siding that had been behind the bushes and swept
the now accessible walkway. Even though the meter is now exposed, I'm glad
the bushes are gone. If we wrap the planter around the side of the house
like the bushes were, a couple of plants or _small_ bushes will hide it
again.

All in all, it worked out rather well.