CSST vs. Black Iron for Gas Lines
Black iron is the incumbent: rigid, cheap per foot, joined with threaded fittings, and utterly proven. Its cost is labor — every direction change is a fitting, every fitting is threading and doping and testing.
CSST trades material cost for speed: it snakes through framing in continuous runs, cutting joints to a fraction. Long retrofit pulls that would take a day in iron take hours in CSST.
The non-negotiable with CSST is bonding: the tubing must be bonded to the electrical grounding system per its listing, because unbonded CSST near a lightning event is a documented fire path. The clamp costs a few dollars; skipping it is how installers end up in depositions.
Counter guidance: iron for exposed runs, mechanical rooms and anywhere it might take abuse; CSST for concealed retrofit runs and complex routing — installed by someone trained on that specific product's requirements.
Whichever way the job decides, it's on the shelf in Asheville with same-day pickup.