Restaurant Gas Line Installation in San Antonio and La Vernia

Drops for ranges, fryers, ovens and smokers

Most cook lines run off a header, a larger pipe behind the equipment, with a drop to each range, fryer, oven or indoor smoker at its inlet height. Fryers fire hard after every basket and deck ovens often burn all day, so everything counts at full input. The hood's fire suppression system shuts off gas to the appliances under the hood, so new drops are piped downstream of its valve, planned with your suppression contractor.

Gas for barbecue pits and smokers

San Antonio has been a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy since 2017, and barbecue is big here, from the city out through Wilson and Guadalupe counties. Some commercial smokers burn wood but use a gas burner to light the fire or hold temperature overnight. A pit under a shed or in a pit house needs exterior or buried pipe:

• San Antonio's amended fuel gas code puts an outdoor appliance's shutoff where it joins the gas piping.
• Outside the building footprint, a commercial gas line may share a trench with electric lines only with 36 inches of side-to-side separation.
• CPS Energy requires a separate shutoff outside each building when one line feeds two, like a dining room and pit house.

Sizing gas for a full cook line

CPS Energy figures maximum demand by adding the BTU input of everything that could run at once. At a Saturday rush nearly every burner is on, so we total the inputs, measure to the farthest appliance and size the header and drops to hold pressure at the last inlet.

CPS normally uses rotary meters for high-volume users like restaurants and can approve elevated delivery pressure case by case, with customer-owned regulators downstream. On commercial meter sets, we contact CPS's Gas Engineering project manager before construction, as CPS asks.

Quick-disconnect hoses, restraint cables and shutoffs

Equipment on casters rolls out for cleaning, so it connects with a hose built for movable gas appliances (ANSI Z21.69), usually through a quick-disconnect fitting (ANSI Z21.41). A restraint cable fastened to a wall stud and the appliance frame runs beside the hose and is shorter than it, so the cable takes the pull before the hose can.

Each appliance gets its own manual valve ahead of the hose; San Antonio repealed the code option for valves at a remote manifold. To clean, the crew shuts the valve, pops the disconnect, unclips the cable and rolls the unit out; going back, the cable clips on first. Replace a hose that's been run over or baked in grease.

Permits, pressure tests and inspection

Inside San Antonio, new gas piping needs a Development Services plumbing, gas and sewer permit, pulled by the plumber doing the work. The city enforces the 2024 International Fuel Gas Code with local amendments: steel gas pipe must be at least Schedule 40, CSST is barred from the meter loop and exterior walls, and low-pressure piping is pressure-tested at rough-in with 10 psi of air and again at final with 5 psi and the appliance valves attached.

Test pressure can damage a CPS meter, so on larger sets CPS recommends an isolating valve just past it. After the final inspection passes and gas flows, lines are purged, joints leak-checked and each appliance lit. Outside San Antonio city limits, permit rules depend on the city (La Vernia, Seguin, Floresville) or whether the address is unincorporated, so we check them for your address. Kitchens along US-87 in La Vernia and across Wilson County may run on propane instead of piped natural gas; the supplier handles the tank and regulator, and each appliance must be set up for propane, either at the factory or with the maker's conversion kit.

Scheduling around service, and remodels

Planned work is booked at a time that suits you. Pipe away from the hot line is planned around your prep and service times. The tie-in and final pressure test shut gas to part of the line, so they go on a closed day or a slow afternoon.

Swapping a flat-top for a charbroiler, adding fryers or moving the line changes the load, so we recheck the full run; unused outlets are cut back and capped. Older buildings in downtown Seguin's historic district or near the Wilson County Courthouse in Floresville may have piping sized for a smaller kitchen.

Kitchens we pipe are in and around La Vernia, Seguin, Floresville and east San Antonio.

Restaurant gas line questions

Plan the gas for your kitchen

Call (830) 475-2604 with your equipment list or rating-plate photos, and we'll size the line and work around your hours. Smell gas? Get everyone outside, then call at any hour and we send our on-call plumber right away.

Office hours 8 AM–11 PM daily · 24/7 emergency service