Gas Line Repair in Star, ID
Utility gas heats 79% of homes in Star. That puts a buried service line and a meter on most properties here, and puts the boundary between the two sides of the system exactly at the meter.
Read this first
A buried service line and a meter sit on most properties in Star, where 79% of homes are on mains gas. Federal rules end the utility's service line at the meter outlet, so everything downstream of the meter is the owner's to maintain and repair.
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 Star is supplied
Under 49 CFR § 192.3, a service line ends at "the outlet of the customer meter or at the connection to a customer’s piping, whichever is further downstream". Upstream of the meter is the operator’s regulated line. Downstream is customer piping, under local code.
That is where the regulated line stops. Who pays is a separate question set by tariff and state regulation, and it is worth asking your utility rather than assuming.
| Households in Star | Share |
|---|---|
| Utility (mains) gas | 79% |
| Bottled or tank propane | 4% |
| Electricity | 13% |
| Fuel oil and kerosene | under 1% |
| Wood and everything else | 3% |
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates, table B25040 (house heating fuel), 2023 release. Universe: 5,396 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 Idaho as a whole, 62% of households are on mains gas and 3% on tank propane. Star sits 17 points above the state on mains and about level with 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
The single most dangerous thing most people will ever do to a gas line is put a spade through it. PHMSA calls excavation damage the leading cause of pipeline incidents; 8-1-1 is a nationwide toll-free number to call before any excavation, and calling it gives a 99 percent chance of avoiding an incident.
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 Idaho towns we route in
- Malad City 1% mains gas · 55% tank propane
- Kuna 67% mains gas · 3% tank propane
- Eagle 77% mains gas · 2% tank propane
- Parma 21% mains gas · 9% tank propane
- Middleton 56% mains gas · 6% tank propane
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. Other Star requests are covered by the same line.
Call (888) 752-8038