Before a utility sets a meter or turns the gas on, it usually wants paper. Sometimes its own form, sometimes the town's certificate, sometimes only your signature under one sentence. Here is what each asks for, taken from their own published documents — and a form you can print when nobody names one.
The utility's own test form. Central Hudson and Vermont Gas each publish one, and each says it must be theirs. National Grid's upstate specifications carry a compliance certificate with a short pressure test report underneath. These record the test itself: the pressure, the hold, the readings.
A signature, not a test record. NYSEG and RG&E ask the customer and the contractor to sign that the piping "has been subjected to and passed the pressure test requirements as outlined in applicable code". No pressure and no hold time are written on it. The signature points at a test — which means the record of that test is yours to keep.
The town's certificate. National Grid's own meter checklist asks for the "City, State, Town, or Village pressure test certificate" to be left on site where the authority having jurisdiction requires one. Villages and towns publish their own — the Village of Wappingers Falls, for one, has a Distribution Piping Pressure Test Verification Affidavit. That one comes from the building department, not the utility.
| Utility | What they want | Hold |
|---|---|---|
| Central HudsonMid-Hudson Valley, NY | Their Gas Piping Pressure and Leakage Test form, emailed in | 60 min |
| National GridUpstate NY | Compliance certificate + pressure test report; town certificate if required | codeNFPA 54 §8.1.4 |
| NYSEG and RG&ENew York | Signed Natural Gas Appliance Inspection Certificate | codenot stated on the form |
| Vermont GasVermont | Their Pressure Test Form, by certified personnel | codeNFPA 54 |
| Alliant EnergyIowa, Wisconsin | Gas Piping Statement before the meter goes in | code |
| Texas schoolsevery gas utility | Test results every two years, before the school year | 30 minat 5 psig or more |
"Code" means the utility defers to the adopted fuel gas code: at least 1½ times the working pressure and never under 3 psi, held half an hour per 500 cubic feet of pipe, with ten minutes for a single-family dwelling. The requirements page has the detail, and the calculator works your number out.
Central Hudson Gas & Electric's Gas Piping Pressure and Leakage Test is the strictest form here, and the one that catches people out.
gaswork@cenhud.com.Central Hudson, "Gas Piping Pressure and Leakage Test" (Appendix A), cenhud.com — checked 22 September 2026
National Grid's Bluebook — its specifications and requirements for gas installations in upstate New York — carries a compliance certificate in which the contractor certifies that the materials and joining methods meet National Grid's specifications and that the piping passed a pressure test under 16 NYCRR Part 255 and the National Fuel Gas Code. Under it sits a short pressure test report: service address and city, "tested at ___ psig for ___ minutes/hours", the date, the company, its phone number and a signature with the name printed.
For the numbers it points to NFPA 54 §8.1.4: at least 1½ times the working pressure and not less than 3 psi, half an hour per 500 cubic feet of pipe, ten minutes for a single-family dwelling or under 10 cubic feet, and never more than 24 hours.
Two more things from the same book. The meter checklist wants the town's own pressure test certificate left on site wherever the authority having jurisdiction requires one. And at the meter set, National Grid runs its own check — lock-up and running pressure, ignition and draft — so a leak you missed is found in front of their technician, not yours.
National Grid, "Bluebook: Specifications and Requirements for Gas Installations, Upstate New York", 2016 edition — check for a later one before relying on it
The two Avangrid utilities in New York use the same residential gas service package. The pressure test appears twice, and neither time with a number.
So the form proves nothing on its own. If the job is ever questioned, what stands behind that signature is the record you made at the time: pressure, hold, gauge, start and end readings, the date and who ran it.
NYSEG and RG&E, "Residential Natural Gas Service Package" — checked 22 September 2026
Vermont Gas Systems publishes a one-page Pressure Test Form and is plain about it: gas meters will not be turned on without properly signed test forms.
Vermont Gas Systems, "Pressure Test Form" (2019), vgsvt.com
In Alliant Energy's new-service process, the last step before the meter goes in is to submit a Gas Piping Statement to the project lead. It records who installed the piping, the appliances it feeds and the date it was pressure tested, and is signed to confirm the piping was completed for natural gas and meets the applicable codes. The pressure and hold themselves are the code's, and the local inspector's.
Alliant Energy, "Establishing New Service for Construction and Remodeling", alliantenergy.com
Texas law makes schools test their natural gas piping at least once every two years, before the school year starts, and send the results to their gas utility. The Railroad Commission of Texas sets the test, as Atmos Energy publishes it:
| Normal operating pressure | Test |
|---|---|
| Under 0.5 psig | 5 psig for 30 min |
| 0.5 psig or more | 1.5 × NOP or 5 psig, whichever is greater, for 30 min |
| 5 psig or more | 1.5 × NOP for 30 min, or NOP for 1 hour |
Who may run it, per CenterPoint Energy: a licensed plumber, a qualified employee or agent of the school regularly working as its maintenance person or engineer, or a person exempt from the plumbing licence law under Chapter 1301 of the Texas Occupations Code. Atmos Energy takes the results through its School Pipe Testing Portal, and asks for testing to be done by July 15 or before students arrive, whichever comes first.
Atmos Energy, "School Pipe Testing Requirements"; CenterPoint Energy, "Texas School Pipeline Testing"
Put the forms side by side and the same handful of facts turns up on all of them. A record that carries every one of these is what an inspector or a utility technician expects to see when nobody has named a form:
GasTest Log does not fill in a utility's own form — Central Hudson and Vermont Gas both insist on theirs, and they are right to. What it does is make the numbers you copy onto that form hard to argue with: it times the hold on the wall clock, keeps a photo of the gauge at the start and at the end, and prints a one-page certificate with the code sections cited. For NYSEG, RG&E and every other utility that asks only for your signature, that certificate is the record standing behind it.
Summarised from each utility's own published documents, checked 22 September 2026. Forms and requirements change — download the current version from your utility before you use it, and follow your authority having jurisdiction where it asks for more. Not affiliated with any utility named here.
Last reviewed 22 September 2026