Canada Cost Guides
How Much Does Gas Line Installation Cost in Canada?
Typical cost in Canada
$850
$150 low · $2,500 high
All-in installed price per appliance: pipe, fittings, shut-off, labour, pressure test & gas permit · Updated July 2026
Installing a gas line in Canada costs $150 to $2,500 installed, and most homeowners pay around $850 for one new appliance run off the existing meter. BC gas fitters sell this work per appliance, not by the metre. Ask three companies what a BBQ line costs and you get three flat ranges back, never a rate card. The figures below are installed prices for a single appliance: pipe, fittings, the shut-off at the end, labour, the pressure test, and the permit. Distance from the meter and whether anything has to be dug up or opened is what moves them.
This guide covers prices by job type, by province and by city, exactly what a quote should include, a calculator for your setup, how the work goes step by step, and how to avoid overpaying.
Canada-wide figures currently reflect British Columbia — the first province we've priced. Licensing, permits, and rebates vary by province; the province guides carry the local specifics.
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By the PlumbingCosts.ca team — we track published contractor rates, supplier pricing, and permit fees across Canada because you deserve to know a fair price before anyone's in your basement.
Price by Job Type
| Job | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hooking an appliance onto a line that already reaches it | $150 | $250 | $400 |
| New run to a gas range or dryer | $300 | $650 | $1,200 |
| BBQ or patio line, run above ground | $500 | $900 | $1,400 |
| BBQ or patio line with a trench across the yard | $1,000 | $1,700 | $2,500 |
| Fireplace rough-in (pipe only, appliance separate) | $500 | $1,000 | $1,500 |
Cost by Province
Labour rates swing province to province — open your province for local prices, permit notes, and a market-tuned estimate.
- British Columbia $150–$2,500 · 21 cities
- Alberta Next up
- Ontario Next up
- Quebec Planned
- Manitoba Planned
- Saskatchewan Planned
- Nova Scotia Planned
- New Brunswick Planned
- Prince Edward Island Planned
- Newfoundland and Labrador Planned
What's in the Price — and What Isn't
In the price
- A load calculation: what the new appliance draws, and whether the existing supply can carry it alongside what's already connected
- Pipe, fittings, hangers, and a sleeve wherever the run passes through a wall or a floor
- The manual shut-off at the appliance, plus a sediment trap where the appliance calls for one
- Labour to route the run — crawlspace, joist bays, along the foundation, or inside a wall
- A pressure test on the finished pipe before any gas enters it
- The gas permit, the inspection, and connecting, purging and leak-checking at the appliance
Costs extra
- The appliance itself — a Greater Vancouver gas fireplace lands at $3,500–$8,000 once the unit, venting and gas work are counted together
- Trenching and landscape restoration on a yard run (+$400–$1,100)
- Opening finished walls or ceilings, and the drywall and paint afterward
- Meter or service upgrades, which belong to FortisBC and move on FortisBC's timeline
- Electrical work for appliances that need a receptacle at the new location
- Saw-cutting a slab, walkway or driveway the line has to cross
The detail worth arguing about on a gas quote is where the run stops and what size pipe gets there. "Gas line to the deck" can mean tubing that will feed a BBQ and never anything else, or a properly sized line with capacity left over. Ask what BTU load the finished line carries — it costs almost nothing to answer at quote stage and a second full job to fix later.
Calculate Your Estimate
What Moves the Price
- Appliances, not footage
- Every BC gas fitter publishing a price quotes per appliance. A generic benchmark of roughly $12 to $25 a foot floats around cost guides and gets repeated on one Sunshine Coast company's page, but nobody found in this province actually sells the job that way. Ask for a per-appliance number and competing quotes finally line up beside each other.
- Where the meter is and what the pipe has to cross
- A range on the other side of the wall from the meter is an hour of work. The same range at the far end of a finished basement means a route through joist bays, a crawlspace, or a wall that has to come open. Route length matters mostly because of what sits along it.
- Trenching and putting the yard back
- An outdoor run buried to code is the single biggest jump on this job — it is the difference between the $500 to $1,400 surface band and the $2,500 top end. Lawn is cheap to reinstate, paving stones less so, and a driveway crossing means saw-cutting concrete.
- Meter and supply capacity
- FortisBC owns the meter and the regulator; the gas fitter owns everything after it. Adding a fireplace, a BBQ and a garage heater to a house metered for a furnace and a water heater can push total demand past what the existing meter and service carry. Upsizing runs on the utility's schedule, which delays a job far more often than it inflates the invoice.
- Permit and inspection
- New gas piping always needs a permit, and the fee depends on who your city hands that job to. Fifteen of our 21 cities route it through Technical Safety BC: $116 on a contractor permit that covers one appliance or two, and $164 if a homeowner pulls their own. Cities running their own programs set their own rates — Vancouver charges $282 for one to three new appliances, Burnaby $70 plus $39 per extra appliance, Richmond the greater of $81.75 or $30.75 an appliance, Kelowna $75, the City of North Vancouver $150, Maple Ridge a $100 minimum.
- Pipe size and material
- Black iron threaded on site, or flexible corrugated tubing pulled through framing — both are legitimate, and the choice usually follows the route rather than the price. Size follows the BTU draw at the far end plus everything else already on the meter. A line sized for one BBQ and nothing else is cheap today and expensive the day a patio heater shows up.
Where a typical $850 job goes:
- Materials
- 28% · ~$238
- Labour
- 60% · ~$510
- Permit & disposal
- 12% · ~$102
How the Job Actually Goes
-
Site visit and load calculation
The gas fitter walks the route, measures it, and adds the new appliance's draw to everything already on the meter. This is where a job quietly becomes a meter conversation instead of a pipe conversation.
Included in the quote
-
Permit
Pulled before the pipe goes in, from the municipality where the city runs its own gas program, or from Technical Safety BC everywhere else. The permit fee covers the inspection at the end.
$70–$282 in own-program cities; through Technical Safety BC, $116 on a contractor permit and $164 on a homeowner one
-
Run the pipe
Pipe is cut, threaded or pulled, hung to code, and sleeved wherever it passes through structure. This is the bulk of the labour, and its length depends far more on what's in the way than on how far the run goes.
Where most of the labour hours go
-
Trench, where the line goes outdoors
An exterior run gets buried at the depth code requires, with tracer tape or marking so the next person digging finds it before their shovel does. Backfill and reinstating the surface belong to this step.
$400–$1,100 on a typical yard run
-
Pressure test
The finished line is capped and pressurized, and it has to hold while the inspector watches or while the gauge sits on it. Anything closed into a wall gets tested before it's covered, not after.
Included
-
Connect, purge, inspect
Gas is let in, air is purged out of the new run, the appliance is connected and lit, and every joint gets a leak check. The inspection closes the permit.
Included in the permit fee
Do It Yourself or Hire a Pro?
Doing it yourself
- The trench is genuinely yours to dig. Excavating a yard run to the route and depth the gas fitter specifies takes several hundred dollars of the biggest add-on off the invoice
- Clearing the route ahead of the crew — emptying a crawlspace, lifting deck boards, moving what's stacked against the wall — is billable time you keep
- Gas piping is permitted, inspected work. Technical Safety BC issues a $164 homeowner permit good for one appliance or two, but only on a detached house you own and occupy — never a strata unit or a duplex
- Sizing is arithmetic, not judgment: the pipe has to deliver the appliance's full BTU draw at the far end of the run with every elbow counted, on top of everything already hanging off the meter
- The saving is thin against the exposure. On a $650 range line, labour is a few hundred dollars, and an unpermitted line discovered after a leak or a fire is exactly the detail an insurer builds a denial around
- A pressure test proves the line holds air. It doesn't prove the joints were made properly, and the sections that get buried or closed into a wall are the ones nobody ever looks at again
Hiring a licensed pro
- A certified gasfitter makes the joints, pulls the permit, and hands the inspection over to the authority that issued it
- Sizing comes off a load calculation for the whole house, not for the one appliance being added
- The appliance gets connected, purged and lit, rather than left for you to sort out
- There's a paper trail — permit number, test result, inspection sign-off — for insurance and for whoever buys the house
- The permit and the test cost the same whether the run is three metres or thirty, so short jobs carry a fixed overhead
- Where FortisBC has to touch the meter, the schedule stops being the contractor's to control
Our take: The pipe work isn't a homeowner project worth taking on, even where a permit is technically available to you. The realistic split is that you dig the trench and clear the route, and a certified gasfitter sizes the line, makes the joints, tests it and gets it inspected. That division saves real money on a yard run and costs nothing in safety.
Signs It's Time to Replace
- A gas range you want in a kitchen that has only ever been wired for electric
- A BBQ working through a 20-lb propane cylinder every second weekend all summer
- A fireplace or insert bought before anyone checked whether there's gas at that wall
- A garage or workshop currently heated by a construction heater and a lot of optimism
- A patio heater, fire table and BBQ planned together, which is a sizing question before it's a pipe question
- Corroded or damaged existing pipe found during other work, where the answer is new line rather than a patch
How to Keep the Cost Down
- Put every appliance on one permit and one visit. A second appliance adds $39 in Burnaby and $80 through Technical Safety BC on a permit already open — a second mobilization costs far more than that
- Dig the trench yourself, to the route and depth the gas fitter gives you. It's the largest single line item on an outdoor run and the only part that needs no licence
- Ask for the price per appliance rather than a lump sum for "gas work". Comparing three lump sums tells you nothing; comparing three per-appliance numbers tells you everything
- Oversize the pipe once. The material difference between a line that just feeds a BBQ and one with headroom left is small; running the same route a second time is not
- Check for an existing stub before you book anything. Plenty of BC houses have a capped tee near the deck or the garage from an earlier install, and finding it turns a $900 job into a $250 one
- Book outside BBQ season. A patio line quoted in May competes with everyone else's May
Questions to Ask Before You Hire
- Are you a certified gasfitter licensed by Technical Safety BC, and does this price carry the permit?
- Is this quoted per appliance, and what does a second appliance cost if I add it now?
- What pipe size are you running, and what BTU load will the finished line carry?
- Have you checked what the meter is already carrying, and does FortisBC need to be involved?
- Who backfills the trench and reinstates the lawn, patio or paving?
- Will I get the pressure test result and the inspection sign-off in writing?
While the Plumber Is There
Call-out time is a big share of any bill — if one of these applies to your home, pricing it in the same visit usually beats a separate appointment.
Tankless Water Heater Installation
A tankless unit fires at several times the rate of the tank it replaces, so the gas line is usually the first thing that has to grow. Price the two together or the tankless quote will surprise you.
A furnace swap already brings a gasfitter and a gas permit to the house. Any new appliance run you were planning belongs on that same permit and that same visit.
The same trade, the same permit authority, and often the same corner of the basement — worth pricing together if the tank is anywhere near the end of its run.