Home › Washington › Orcas
Gas Line Repair in Orcas, WA
In Orcas, 24% of homes run on tank propane rather than mains gas. That changes the answer to almost every question on this page, starting with who owns the pipe.
Read this first
Tank gas serves 24% of households in Orcas. With no utility main and no meter, the boundary that matters on mains gas does not exist here, and the tank, regulator and buried line are the owner's or the supplier's under contract.
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 Orcas is supplied
Propane changes the ownership question completely. There is no utility that owns a length of it, which means there is nobody else whose problem part of it is.
It also changes the risk in one specific way: propane is heavier than air and collects in low spaces rather than dispersing upward. Basements, pits and crawl spaces are where it goes.
| Households in Orcas | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 2% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 24% |
| Electricity | 60% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 4% |
| Wood and everything else | 9% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 245 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 Washington as a whole, 39% of households are on mains gas and 2% on tank propane. Orcas sits 37 points below the state on mains; its propane share carries too wide a margin of error to compare. 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
A locate before digging is free, and PHMSA is unambiguous about the value — excavation damage is the leading cause of pipeline incidents and calling 8-1-1 first avoids one 99 times in a hundred. The gap to ask about is private buried line, which a standard locate may not mark.
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 Washington towns we route in
- Camano Island 10% mains gas · 23% tank propane
- Ridgefield 38% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Ferndale 46% mains gas · 11% tank propane
- University Place 35% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Sumner 39% mains gas · 1% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Washington
Washington licenses are issued by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, 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. Any Orcas job, gas or otherwise, is routed from here.
Call (888) 752-8038