Will those in the southern states cope? Could you switch?
We built our house specifically to not have mains gas. Large double-glazed picture windows on the north side of the house, Solar and a Battery, decent insulation. Large capacity reverse cycle A/C with the condensers on the south side of the house.
The a week before handover, the Site Supervisor told us that they ‘mistakenly’ budgeted for “electrical assist” hot water instead of full electric. They would need to add Gas, but they would pay for the connection. We argued with them. They argued back. It escalated all the way to the CEO of the Building Company. The Site Supervisor kept insisting that it was impossible to have full electric hot water, that is was cost-prohibitive to install, cost-prohibitive to run and anyone who would not want gas hot water was a fucking idiot. The CEO explained to the Site Supervisor that his own house had Full electric, two Tesla Power-walls and an extensive solar array and hadn’t had to pay for Gas or Electricity since it was built. He then calmly fired the Site Supervisor and instructed the Regional Manager to authorise the Full electric hot water with no extra charge to us.
This is a crazy story. Most houses in northern Australia have full electric hot water. Very rare to have town gas and bottles is often painful.
We had all sorts of problems with the build. It had minimal to do with the company and everything to do with the Site Supervisors(s).
Another example was the Colourbond roof. We specifically wanted a light colour (to reflect heat in summer), with Woodland Grey gutters (to contrast with the roof and complement the render). We turned up one night after work and they had done the whole roof in Woodland Grey. We pointed out this observation and found out that the Site Supervidor had changed the purchase order because he “thought that Woodland Grey would look better”.
His suggested remedy was to repaint the roof and even came into my workplace during work hours to try to con me into authorise the incorrect roof colour.
In the end they had to tear down the Woodland Grey and re-clad in Surf Mist.
the cynic in me says this recent ‘abandon gas’ media blitz is more to do with clouding the message so Australians don’t get angry at our natural gas being sold cheaper to Japanese consumers then to us. The LNP/ALP cabal really screwed us on that.
Not only would we need to swap out a gas heater, hot water, and a new stove, we would very likely need an upgraded electricity supply. Our old house has a 35A main breaker, maybe that is what was considered enough 53 years ago. I don’t know what capacity the cable itself has though. Exactly how far would the carrot side of any such program go?
Here in WA, the focus needs to be on getting the power grid under control. There is currently not enough gas power generation… resulting in dirty diesel generators being spun up.
Given the WA grid can’t handle current power demands, I don’t think we’ll be in a position to disconnect household gas for quite some time ☹
