Gas Line Repair in Hilo, HI
Only 7% of households in Hilo use gas of any kind — 3% on mains and 4% on tank propane. Gas line work is the exception here rather than the rule.
Read this first
Gas of any kind reaches only 7% of households in Hilo, so most homes there have no gas line at all. Where one exists it is more often a tank than a main, which puts the installation on the property rather than behind a meter.
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 Hilo is supplied
With gas this uncommon locally, the useful question is which arrangement you have rather than what the town does. A mains connection has a meter and a federal boundary; a tank has neither.
| Households in Hilo | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 3% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 4% |
| Electricity | 35% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | under 1% |
| Wood and everything else | 58% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 17,912 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 Hawaii as a whole, 3% of households are on mains gas and 1% on tank propane. Hilo sits about level with the state on mains and 3 points above 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
Excavation damage remains the leading cause of pipeline incidents according to PHMSA. That is not a fact about pipelines so much as a fact about gardening, and the prevention is one free call to 8-1-1 before the first spade goes in.
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 Hawaii towns we route in
- Honokaa 1% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Waikoloa 1% mains gas · 0% tank propane
- Kaneohe 2% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Honolulu 4% mains gas · 1% tank propane
- Pearl City 2% mains gas · under 1% tank propane
Checking a plumber in Hawaii
Hawaii licenses are issued by the Hawaii Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Professional and Vocational Licensing, 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 Hilo job, gas or otherwise, is routed from here.
Call (888) 752-8038