Gas Line Repair in Downey, ID
In Downey, 56% 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 56% of households in Downey. 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 Downey is supplied
No meter, no service line, no tariff. On propane the whole installation is one thing and it is yours, from the tank to the appliance.
Which is why the buried section deserves attention here more than it does on a mains connection: nobody else is watching it.
| Households in Downey | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 4% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 56% |
| Electricity | 19% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | 8% |
| Wood and everything else | 12% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 524 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 Idaho as a whole, 62% of households are on mains gas and 3% on tank propane. Downey sits 58 points below the state on mains; its propane share carries too wide a margin of error to compare. 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
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 them to describe the fault before they price it. "The line needs replacing" is not a diagnosis, and on a buried run the difference between one damaged point and a line at the end of its life is most of the cost.
Other Idaho towns we route in
Checking a plumber in Idaho
Idaho licenses are issued by the Idaho State Plumbing Board, Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses, 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. Gas is one part of what Downey calls us about.
Call (888) 752-8038