Is it cheaper to have a plumber or the fireplace company run the gas line?

The license comes before the price

In NC, running or extending a gas line is licensed work — full stop. Some plumbers carry the gas-piping license and do it well; many don't, and a handyman never can, legally. So the first question isn't who's cheaper, it's who's licensed. Steady Flame is a licensed gas contractor, and we permit and pressure-test every line we run with your county — Buncombe, Henderson, Haywood, or Transylvania — and meet the inspector ourselves.

Where split jobs quietly get expensive

We get called weekly to finish jobs that started as a bargain. A line gets stubbed to the wrong spot for the unit's valve location. The pipe is sized for a generic appliance instead of the actual fireplace's BTU draw and run length, so the flame runs starved. The shutoff lands somewhere the fireplace surround will bury. Each miss means a second visit, a second trip charge, and sometimes rework on a wall that was already closed up.

Then there's accountability. If the fireplace won't light right after two companies touched the job, you become the referee. When one company ran the line, set the unit, and lit it off, there's nobody to point fingers at — the phone number on the invoice is the phone number that fixes it.

Our honest take

If you already have a trusted, gas-licensed plumber and a dead-simple run, the price difference will be small either way — we won't pretend otherwise. But a fireplace gas line isn't generic plumbing; it's sized and terminated for one specific appliance, and it has to pass inspection alongside the venting and the unit itself. Bundling it into the fireplace install is usually the same money for a cleaner job and one workmanship guarantee covering everything. Get both numbers if you like — our in-home assessment is free. Call (828) 545-0525.