Gas Line Repair in Houston, TX
In Houston, 38% of homes use gas — 37% of it piped and 1% from a tank. A meter is a regulatory boundary; a propane tank is not one.
Read this first
Mains gas heats 37% of homes in Houston and tank gas another 1%. 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 Houston is supplied
The split here means a contractor may be quoting on either arrangement, and the first question is which. On mains it also matters which side of the meter the fault is on, because one side may not be a contractor job at all.
| Households in Houston | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 37% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 1% |
| Electricity | 61% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | under 1% |
| Wood and everything else | 1% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 886,644 occupied housing units. Read it as fuel rather than as plumbing. The share on utility gas is how many houses burn it, which is the nearest thing published to how many have a service line. Service line definition: 49 CFR § 192.3, via PHMSA interpretation PI-12-0003.
Across Texas as a whole, 38% of households are on mains gas and 2% on tank propane. Houston sits 1 point below the state on mains and 1 point below it on propane. A state figure would flatten exactly that difference, which is the reason these pages are built town by town instead.
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 whether the job needs a permit and who is pulling it. Gas work is separately permitted in most jurisdictions and the answer should not be you.
Other Texas towns we route in
- New Caney 17% mains gas · 10% tank propane
- College Station 31% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Wilmer 13% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Venus 19% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Wolfe City 29% mains gas · 13% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Texas
Texas licenses are issued by the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, which publishes a public search you can use before work begins.
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. Non-emergency work in Houston goes through this number as well.
Call (888) 752-8038