Home › South Carolina › Buffalo
Gas Line Repair in Buffalo, SC
Buffalo is split: 15% of households are on mains gas and 2% on bottled or tank propane. Those are two different arrangements with two different answers about who owns the pipe.
Read this first
Mains gas heats 15% of homes in Buffalo 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 Buffalo is supplied
Two arrangements in one town, and the difference is not cosmetic. A mains connection has a meter, and 49 CFR § 192.3 ends the regulated service line at its outlet. A propane installation has no meter boundary and belongs to the property owner end to end.
Establish which you have before anything else on this page applies.
| Households in Buffalo | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 15% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 2% |
| Electricity | 77% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 3% |
| Wood and everything else | 3% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 1,159 occupied housing units. B25040 records what heats the house, which is the best available guide to whether a property has mains gas or a tank — it does not count service lines directly. Service line definition: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Across South Carolina as a whole, 31% of households are on mains gas and 3% on tank propane. Buffalo sits 16 points below the state on mains and about level with it on propane. That distance from the state average is the whole argument for publishing a town figure at all.
Before anyone digs on the property
Before any digging — a fence post as much as a foundation — call 8-1-1. It is a nationwide toll-free number, it costs nothing, and PHMSA puts the chance of avoiding an incident afterwards at 99 percent.
Source: PHMSA, 811 Day.
What to ask whoever quotes it
Ask how the work will be tested and what happens at the end of it. An inspection on gas work is normal rather than a complication, and a contractor who treats it as one is telling you something.
Other South Carolina towns we route in
- Fort Mill 61% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Chester 41% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Heath Springs 46% mains gas · 4% tank propane
- Fountain Inn 33% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Starr 6% mains gas · 4% tank propane
Checking a plumber in South Carolina
South Carolina licenses are issued by the South Carolina Residential Builders Commission, Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which publishes a public search you can use before work begins. South Carolina requires a residential plumber license for work over $500, according to the Commission.
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. Any Buffalo job, gas or otherwise, is routed from here.
Call (888) 752-8038