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Gas Line Repair in Seattle, WA
In Seattle, 36% of homes use gas — 35% of it piped and 1% from a tank. A meter is a regulatory boundary; a propane tank is not one.
Read this first
In Seattle, 35% of homes are on mains gas and 1% on bottled, so the town average settles nothing about any one address. Mains gas ends the utility's regulated line at the meter outlet; a tank supply has no such boundary.
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 Seattle is supplied
Mains and tank gas differ in ownership, in who to call, and in how the gas behaves if it escapes — propane is heavier than air and collects low rather than rising.
What they do not differ in is the emergency response, which is the same for both and is the first thing on every page of this site.
| Households in Seattle | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 35% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 1% |
| Electricity | 59% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 4% |
| Wood and everything else | 2% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 449,727 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 Washington as a whole, 39% of households are on mains gas and 2% on tank propane. Seattle sits 5 points below the state on mains and 1 point below it on propane. Averages are where this kind of difference disappears. The figures on this page are the town’s own for that reason.
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 Washington towns we route in
- Everson 28% mains gas · 14% tank propane
- Lynden 66% mains gas · 5% tank propane
- Renton 45% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Camas 53% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Federal Way 40% 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. Other Seattle requests are covered by the same line.
Call (888) 752-8038