Welcome to the gas fitting section of the website

Gas fitting encompasses anything to do with natural gas or propane gas in your house, shop, garage, or other location.  For the most part in Edmonton, Sherwood Park, St Albert and surrounding areas we use natural gas to heat our homes and water.

If you live on a farm or acreage you might have to use propane instead of natural gas.  This is because in some cases there is no way to pipe natural gas to your house at the moment.  Sort of like when you might have first moved onto a new acreage and you have to pay to have the electrical ran into your yard, the difference being the natural gas is not even at the road.

Gas Fitter Ticket

To get a ticket to work with gas in Alberta there are two ways you can do this.  The first way is to become a plumber and through the apprenticeship you will also get your Class B Gas ticket.  This ticket allows you to work on natural gas lines but you can only fire appliances that are rated less than 400,000 BTU’s.  Not a problem for most residential and commercial applications.

The second way is to take the gas fitting apprenticeship in Alberta and only work with gas.  This is a shorter apprenticeship but closes the doors on anything related to plumbing.  Once completed you will get a Class A Gas ticket.

Unlike the plumbing ticket which is a national code each province has different codes and tickets.  Therefore if you are coming from a different province you will not have a red seal on your gas ticket and you will need to talk with the apprenticeship board to see what you can do.

Gas Line Retest

If your house has been disconnected from service for 6 months you will require a retest, permit, and inspection.  This procedure is mandatory before Atco will restore your services and has to be done by a qualified plumbing/gas fitting contractor (Kramer Plumbing and Radiant Heat 780-264-0878)

As the contractor we will pull the permit for you, come to your house and disconnect the meter, and all gas appliances.  We then cap off all the piping we disconnected except for the location we are installing the gauge on.  We will then pump up your system to 15 pounds and wait for 15 minutes to makes sure there are no leaks.  If there are no leaks a call to City of Edmonton or Strathcona County will be placed for inspection.  If there are leaks and the test fails we will have to at that point soap test the joints in the gas line to find where the leak or leaks are coming from.  Then we will need to make all necessary repairs and fill the gas line full of air again.  The process is repeated until there are no leaks.

Once the inspection has been passed we will come back and hook up your gas appliances and fire what is required.  Today that mean firing the fireplaces and water heater, and sometimes relighting the furnace and garage heater.

Gas Permits In Edmonton and Sherwood Park

Whenever a new gas line for an appliance is being installed a permit is required.  Along with the permit is an inspector that will come out to your house at the time required to inspect the gas line.

I have been to people’s houses to hook up a natural gas BBQ just to see that the line that was installed by the previous homeowner was not done properly.  Code is there for a reason and that reason is to protect you and anyone else that might live in the house now and in the future.  In this particular case the gas line was coming from inside the house with half inch copper tubing, which cannot handle the BTU load of a BBQ.  Lucky for this homeowner the meter was right beside the improperly installed gas line.  I pulled a permit, tapped into the downstream side of the meter and installed a shut off valve and quick connect for the BBQ.  The inspector came out the next day and gave the job a green sticker (Pass!).  In this particular case we did not need to do an air test as the line was only about 16 inches in length.  A soap test on all the joints is all that is required.

I am not sure what size BBQ that last homeowner had, but there is no way that their BBQ would get as hot as it should.  And in a worse case scenario if the furnace and water heater would have fired at the same time there is potential for the flame to suck back into the gas line and cause an explosion.  Nobody wants that!

Gas Quotes

If you are installing a new appliance in a different location such as a gas stove or BBQ you will want to get a quote for that job.  I can come close over the phone, but sometimes depending on the size of the gas line in your home already you may be in for a surprise on how much the cost will be.  Most quotes come in around $600 to $800.

I have one really good client that went out and bought a new gas stove.  His kitchen was directly above the furnace and water heater area.  So he thought this should be an easy install and not take very long, therefore you purchased the gas range without talking to me.  The gas range cost about $3000.  When I got to his house I told him that the gas lines he had at that moment would not be large enough to handle the extra BTU load of another gas appliance.  He currently has a water heater, furnace and fireplace all running off of a 3/4 Black Iron pipe.  Which was fine, just not large enough to add another appliance.

Since he had already purchased the stove we ran the gas line all the way back to within 2 feet of the meter.  At that point you can add whatever you want.  In this case though the gas meter was 75 feet away from the stove.  The cost for this installation was about $1200 at that time.  He was shocked but new what was going on and was not upset with us since he knew we had nothing to do with the original gas line in the house.

We can also run the gas lines for those appliances and pull the necessary permits to make sure your job has been done to code.

If you would like a quote on any gas line project feel free to give us a call at 780-264-0878

Always remember that the lowest price is never the best price!

Thanks,

Kelly

Kramer Plumbing and Radiant Heat

249 Grand Meadow Crescent NW, Edmonton, AB T6L 1W9
(780) 264-0878