Gas Line Repair in Ontario, OR
In Ontario, both arrangements are common — 38% on utility gas, 2% on tank propane. Which one you have decides whether any of your installation belongs to somebody else.
Read this first
Mains gas heats 38% of homes in Ontario and tank gas another 2%. The difference matters more than the fault does at first, because only one of the two has a meter outlet where the utility's responsibility stops.
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey table B25040; the service line boundary is 49 CFR § 192.3.
If you smell gas right now
Leave the building on foot. Do not use a phone or a light switch inside. Call 911 and your gas utility from somewhere else, and do not call us — we are a referral service, not an emergency line. The full list, in order.
How Ontario is supplied
In a town with both, the useful page is the one about the arrangement you actually have. The meter is the tell: if there is one, there is a service line behind it and a boundary at its outlet.
| Households in Ontario | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 38% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 2% |
| Electricity | 54% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 2% |
| Wood and everything else | 5% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 5,961 occupied housing units. B25040 is a fuel count, not an infrastructure count. It tells you what burns in these houses, from which the arrangement follows — but it is an inference, not a meter reading. Service line definition: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Across Oregon as a whole, 44% of households are on mains gas and 2% on tank propane. Ontario sits 6 points below the state on mains and about level with it on propane. That is the gap a statewide number papers over, and the reason the figures above are this town’s rather than the state’s.
Before anyone digs on the property
8-1-1 is free and nationwide, and PHMSA gives callers a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident, injury or worse. Ask them what they will and will not mark: privately owned buried lines on your own side of the meter frequently are not covered.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask which side of the meter the work is on before anything else. On the utility side it may not be a contractor job at all, and a quote that has not established that has not established whose problem it is.
Other Oregon towns we route in
- Scotts Mills 11% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Gervais 22% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Oregon City 45% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Turner 34% mains gas · 4% tank propane
- Scappoose 37% mains gas · 2% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Oregon
Oregon licenses are issued by the Oregon Building Codes Division, Department of Consumer and Business Services, which publishes a public search you can use before work begins. Plumbing businesses in Oregon must also hold a Construction Contractors Board license, which is a separate search.
Gas work is separately permitted and separately licensed in most jurisdictions, so ask specifically about gas rather than plumbing in general.
For repair work, not for a suspected leak.If you can smell gas, leave and call 911 or your utility from outside; this is the wrong number for that. For everything else — a line, a meter, an appliance connection — we will route you to a contractor covering your area, free of charge to you. Other Ontario requests are covered by the same line.
Call (888) 752-8038