Hi all, first post, have read a lot of the posts here though.
We built a new house with Carlisle Homes recently, moved in in October last year, just at the end of the winter.
I did a bit of research before choosing the heating as we only have LPG, not natural gas (a fair bit east of Melbourne). In the end we we got a Brivis 5 star gas ducted system installed, with zones etc. We have a big refillable gas bottle too, along with a slow combustion wood heater used mainly on weekends. When the house was being built, we opted for double glazing on all windows except for a special bifold window in the kitchen where it wasn't available. We also uprated the insulation in the walls to the thickest fibreglass bats that would fit.
I have been quite disappointed with the gas heating on LPG, aside from the many installation issues, it costs an awful lot of money to run compared with the relatively low costs of natural gas. The heating gets the house up to temperature quite quickly, but the cycle seems to be 3 minutes off, and at least 5 minutes running, you can almost set your watch by it. I am not sure this is correct, but the brivis man was here the other day and he said it was all working correctly. We both work, so the heating might go on at 5pm, and off again at 10:30pm or earlier, no use in the mornings. We run it at 21 degrees as anything cooler seems too cold, I am an office worker, so used to the stable 22 degrees in the office. Used in anger, with lots of weekends etc I believe we could easily use the entire bottle in 2 - 3 weeks. Its a 300 litre bottle (I think), and the last fill was $250. On the flip side, the gas used by the instantaneous hot water and the gas cook top is almost nothing during the summer months.
The house doesn't seem to perform very well either. With the double glazing and extra insulation, I had expected it to retain the heat better. Its much bigger than our first house, but the heating seems to cycle a lot more often in this house compare with the last house and it had barely any insulation and single glazing. I guess its still a mass produced house for a price, so I can't expect great results when it comes to thermal efficiency. We had purchased the wood fire several years ago, and were not sure about installing it, but as the gas consumption became obvious, we got it installed straight away and have been very happy with it. Since we are both out for long periods daily, its not really practical to run all the time, but its lovely on the weekends when we are home, the place gets lovely and warm after several hours of running.
Lastly, not sure on the Elgas pricing chart. We have only had 2 gas bottle refills so far. The first gas fill we had was when auto gas was 60 cpl, and we paid 72 cpl for the bottle to be filled. The latest fill was last Friday, and 80.5 cpl. Auto gas is around the 40cpl at the moment, I will be enquiring about the price different tomorrow.
I don't have any real questions, apart from may be the duty cycle of the gas heating, so I guess this is just some input for others out there about the costs of gas heating on LPG. If I was doing this again i would definitely opt for 3 phase reverse cycle air con, or hydronic heating. I am going to start lobbying the gas companies about bringing natural gas to the area though. We aren't all that far from the Origin gas plant at Lang Lang either.
Andrew