⚠️ If you smell gas
Don't touch any switch. Leave the building. Call FortisBC at 1-800-663-9911 from outside. Then call us on 604-865-7979.
Licensed gas fitters — contractor licence LIC-00215637 — working across Burnaby, typically reaching the city in 90 minutes. Most residential gas work runs $500–$2,500.
Burnaby is a detached-housing city with yards, decks and patios, and that shapes what we're called for here more than anywhere else in our service area.
Why this is different here
Outdoor gas lines — the Burnaby job
More outdoor gas line work happens in Burnaby than in Vancouver, and the reason is simply that more people here have a back garden to put a BBQ in.
A permanent gas line to a BBQ, fire table or patio heater ends the propane tank cycle — no running out mid-cook, no exchanging cylinders, no storing them. It's a modest job on most Burnaby lots because the gas supply is usually already in the house and the run is short.
Cost is driven almost entirely by distance and route: from the existing supply, out through the rim joist or foundation, and to the appliance location. $800–$2,500 covers most of it. Buried sections to a detached patio or outdoor kitchen cost more.
⚠️ Best done between spring and early autumn — the ground is workable and you have the summer to use it. Everyone books in June; April is quieter and the same price.
Gas fireplaces in the post-war housing
Burnaby Heights, Capitol Hill and Willingdon Heights are full of 1940s–60s houses, and a large number have had a gas fireplace or insert fitted into an original wood-burning fireplace at some point in the last thirty years.
Two things come up constantly on those:
Annual servicing that hasn't happened. Glass seals degrade, burners need cleaning, venting needs checking. An unserviced gas fireplace is a combustion safety question, not just an efficiency one.
Units at end of life. A gas insert fitted in the 1990s is now thirty years old, parts are scarce, and replacement is usually the answer. The existing chimney is generally reusable as a venting chase with a new liner, which keeps the cost down.
The chimney issue in older Burnaby houses
Same as we see on tank replacements here, and it applies to gas work generally: many post-war Burnaby houses had a furnace and a water heater sharing one masonry chimney. When the furnace was replaced with a high-efficiency unit venting through a sidewall, the water heater was left venting alone into a flue sized for two appliances.
That affects draft, and draft on a gas appliance is a carbon monoxide question. We check it whenever we're doing gas work in a house of that age.
The towers
Metrotown, Brentwood and Lougheed suites frequently have no suite-level gas at all, or gas limited to an existing fireplace. If you're in a tower and considering a gas appliance, the answer may be no — and we'll tell you before anyone quotes.
What we do in Burnaby
Gas line installation · appliance hookups · gas fireplace installation and annual servicing · outdoor BBQ and fire table lines · leak detection, 24/7 · permits and safety inspections · meter and regulator relocation, coordinated with FortisBC
Gas permits are issued by the City of Burnaby, not Technical Safety BC. Technical Safety BC: Jurisdiction
Installing, modifying or upgrading any part of a gas system in a single-family or duplex dwelling requires a City gas permit. City of Burnaby: Residential Trade Permits
Source: Technical Safety BC: Jurisdiction — https://www.technicalsafetybc.ca/about/jurisdiction-information · City of Burnaby: Residential Trade Permits — https://www.burnaby.ca/services-and-payments/development-permits-construction/residential-trade-permits · checked 2026-09-11
