Long shot- installing a new gas line

[urbancowgirl]

Has anyone ever installed a brand new gas line in an existing home? A home we're considering doesn't appear to have an existing gas line and I really want a gas stove. Plus, it might be nice to upgrade to other gas appliances some day, too. The foundation is slab, so I'm afraid to know how much it might cost to put in a new line. TIA!

[mrs.jacinthe]

If you're considering the home as a purchase, I'd get a quote or two from some plumbers and try to negotiate against the cost, depending on your home market. We'd have considered that as a request when we were selling, at least. But then it would have consisted, literally, of approximately 4 ft of pipe, a valve, and one hole drilled through the wall.

Such a lot depends on the layout of the home and existing gas lines, so getting a quote would be the best way to go.

[wawa]

totally totally depends. On several things.
1. connecting to an existing gas line in the street or installing a propane tank?
If it's the first, then the cost will depend on your utility company. If you agree to hook up at least 3 appliances a lot of places will waive the connection fees. If you're only doing a stove, then you will have to pay and this is NOT cheap.
Propane tank costs will entirely depend on how big of a tank you want. we got a quote for this, but I don't remember it off the top of my head. It was enough to make a regular gas stove+propane hookup come out slightly more expensive than the pricey induction stoves.

If your stove is on an exterior wall than it might not matter that you're on a slab.

[kaylie]

I called our utility company to find out how much it would be to get a gas line. The neighborhood behind us has it but not ours. $500,000.

[wawa]

Nov 28, 2012 16:25:44 GMT -5 kaylie said:

I called our utility company to find out how much it would be to get a gas line. The neighborhood behind us has it but not ours. $500,000.

this is the cost to run it from a main road into a subdivision though, right?

the cost if it's already in the road in front of your house is a lot less. Usually anyway. Still not even close to cheap, but not more than the cost of my house expensive.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Whoa. Reading comprehension fail. I presumed the house had gas for the water heater or furnace. If the whole house is electric, that's another matter altogether. You're talking a cost in the $10k+ range to run a new gas line, most likely.

[munkii]

Definitely do some research to see if it's a possibility. Some companies will not do it only for a stove; so, adding other gas appliances sooner rather than later may be the only option.

[urbancowgirl]

Nov 28, 2012 16:23:54 GMT -5 wawa said:

totally totally depends. On several things.
1. connecting to an existing gas line in the street or installing a propane tank?
If it's the first, then the cost will depend on your utility company. If you agree to hook up at least 3 appliances a lot of places will waive the connection fees. If you're only doing a stove, then you will have to pay and this is NOT cheap.
Propane tank costs will entirely depend on how big of a tank you want. we got a quote for this, but I don't remember it off the top of my head. It was enough to make a regular gas stove+propane hookup come out slightly more expensive than the pricey induction stoves.

If your stove is on an exterior wall than it might not matter that you're on a slab.

I would totally be willing to hook up 3 appliances. If we buy the house, we have buy a new dryer anyway. Unfortunately, the stove is not on an exterior wall. I never considered a propane tank- I'll have to look into that.

Ultimately, we'll have to just get an estimate from a plumber. Or I can just live with an electric stove. And I can take cooking lessons so I don't keep burning everything

[hereonceagain]

Hmm. our house that we recently moved into has a cheap addition that they added a gas line too (from exisisting street gas line). They never even connected a fireplace or oven, not sure what they were going to do with it. Its capped off right now. Makes me wonder if I should use it for something. It's a family room.

[wawa]

Nov 28, 2012 16:40:16 GMT -5 urbancowgirl said:

Nov 28, 2012 16:23:54 GMT -5 wawa said:

totally totally depends. On several things.
1. connecting to an existing gas line in the street or installing a propane tank?
If it's the first, then the cost will depend on your utility company. If you agree to hook up at least 3 appliances a lot of places will waive the connection fees. If you're only doing a stove, then you will have to pay and this is NOT cheap.
Propane tank costs will entirely depend on how big of a tank you want. we got a quote for this, but I don't remember it off the top of my head. It was enough to make a regular gas stove+propane hookup come out slightly more expensive than the pricey induction stoves.

If your stove is on an exterior wall than it might not matter that you're on a slab.

I would totally be willing to hook up 3 appliances. If we buy the house, we have buy a new dryer anyway. Unfortunately, the stove is not on an exterior wall. I never considered a propane tank- I'll have to look into that.

Ultimately, we'll have to just get an estimate from a plumber. Or I can just live with an electric stove. And I can take cooking lessons so I don't keep burning everything

LOL, I bitch about mine a lot, but electric stoves aren't that bad. and when you factor in the cost of the gas hookup, the induction stoves start to look positively affordable - so keep that in mind if you can't get a free line from the gas company. those things are kinda awesome.

but yeah, get an estimate from a plumber for the inside work, and call the local utility to find out if getting a hookup to an existing line is feasible.

[urbancowgirl]

Can I vent about electric stoves for a minute? Why would anyone want to cook on one?? Do people just not know about the joy of gas (haha)? I would say that only a quarter of the houses we've looked at have had gas stoves. And those were all older houses. No newer houses (80's and up) have had a gas stove. Okay, I'm done.

But I am going to look at induction stoves, too. Don't you need special pans for them?

[mrs.jacinthe]

Nov 28, 2012 16:50:17 GMT -5 urbancowgirl said:

Can I vent about electric stoves for a minute? Why would anyone want to cook on one?? Do people just not know about the joy of gas (haha)? I would say that only a quarter of the houses we've looked at have had gas stoves. And those were all older houses. No newer houses (80's and up) have had a gas stove. Okay, I'm done.

But I am going to look at induction stoves, too. Don't you need special pans for them?

Honestly, up until this rental, I never had anything but electric and I love them. I hate hate HATE this gas stove we have. But it may just be cheap.

Go with induction and save yourself some money and hassle. Induction is a faster boil than gas and safer if you have kids, too (cool to the touch.) The pans you need are pans containing steel. If a magnet is attracted to your pots, you can use them. So unless all your pots are copper, you're probably good. And even then, you can buy an induction "plate" that will heat up on the induction range and you can use any pan on top.

[FoxInFiji]

We have a corner country lot and it was going to cost us $15K or more to have a gas line run under the adjacent street and to our house. So we're all electric and will be upgrading to an induction cooktop in the future. It's nice only having one utility bill to pay and not having a big ugly propane take to keep checking on/have filled.

[Deleted]

We put in two new gas lines last year, one to our stove and one to our exterior for a new barbeque. The total was $1300 from a certified and bonded plumbing company (not something you want to hire out on craigslist). BUT we do have an unfinished basement so I am not sure how much help that is.

BUT I am LOVING the gas stove soooo much that it was worth every penny.

[Deleted]

Ok, sorry, also file me under the poor reading comprehension tab because I was assuming you had it to the house. WOW that is insanely expensive!

[kaylie]

Nov 28, 2012 16:33:01 GMT -5 wawa said:

Nov 28, 2012 16:25:44 GMT -5 kaylie said:

I called our utility company to find out how much it would be to get a gas line. The neighborhood behind us has it but not ours. $500,000.

this is the cost to run it from a main road into a subdivision though, right?

the cost if it's already in the road in front of your house is a lot less. Usually anyway. Still not even close to cheap, but not more than the cost of my house expensive.

Yeah, the woman was like "you should really just move if you really want it". I wish we could tap into the line that runs to the house behind us.

[auntie]

My BIL's neighbor wanted a gas line brought in from about a 1/4 mile away when he built his house. The utility company brought the line in which was about $20K some 20 years ago. It would have been more if the line hadn't crossed BIL's driveway, so the new neighbor paid to bring the line to their home which allowed BIL to install a gas heater for his pool and several gas fireplace inserts. Still has a crappy stove and electric dryer.

When I bought a new stove, I had to move the line 1 1/2" for the stove to slide in properly- cost me $200 5 years ago. Grrr.

[emjacobs]

It would be $15k+ for us to get gas out to the house or to get a larger propane tank buried (we have a small one for our fireplace), it just wasn't worth it to me, my stove is good enough.

[sjh722]

Start with the utility company, like pp mentioned, to find out if it's even possible.

We ran natural gas to our building property - we were originally quoted $10,000 - $15,000 or something like that. Fast forward a few months and people were also building next door to us. The utility company had a new program in place where if more than one of you would tie-in, they'd give a credit and divide the amount by the two of you. So we both ended up paying around $600. We haven't built yet, but the utilities are there for when we do in the future.

[pitterwoo]

my dad just did this a couple years ago. It was in the 10-15k range.