Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Dec 30, 2011 7:31 pm Hi, We're At the early stages of our adventure, having just exchanged contracts on a block of land on the Sunshine Coast in QLD. We have chosen our custom builder and are now in the process of agreeing the floor plan and discussing some of the major requirements. Previously we have always lived in houses with natural gas supply so I'm used to instant gas HWS and cooking with a gas hob. However there is no mains gas supply where we are building so if we want gas the only option is LPG. It is just my hubby and I so our hot water usage is fairly low - daily showers, the occasional bath and washing machine on a warm wash 2-3 times a week. Our builder has suggested that it would not be cost effective to go solar hot water but is recommending an instant gas hws run off LPG. I've read that LPG is expensive so I'm not sure whether we should be looking at gas at all,whether we should go solar with gas boost or whether to just go all electric. Would love some advice on which way to go. Thanks, Ruth Our Homebuilding Thread 17th Nov - 1st meeting with PJB architect 27th Feb - Signed contract 23rd Mar - Plans approved 3rd Apr - Slab laid 18th Apr - Roof On 10th May - Lock-up 26th June - Handover Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 2Dec 30, 2011 7:35 pm LPG has about three times the running cost of Natural Gas so I'd be going either solar or heat pump. The Harder You Try - the Luckier You Get ! Web site http://www.anewhouse.com.au Informative, Amusing, and Opinionated Blog - Over 600 posts on all aspects of building a new house. Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 3Dec 30, 2011 10:49 pm Evacuated tube solar or Heat pump hot water system. The bloke over the road from me is on LPG with just him and his wife. He goes through a bottle of LPG every 6 weeks at $70 a bottle. So about $600 a year on LPG not including delivery or bottle hire. No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 4Dec 31, 2011 6:08 am Hi, While solar is about 3-4 times the initial cost of an instantaneous gas system, I would have thought that on the Sunshine Coast that a solar system would be pretty effective - you would probably see a payback in 3-5 years if not sooner. The only advantage of a gas system is that you can never run out of hot water. As a family of five living in Sydney we had an electric boosted solar system with a 315L tank - I think we ran out of hot water once in 2 years - and the electric booster had reheated the tank in a couple of hours. For your situation a 250L tank is probably enough. Perhaps the choice depends on how long you are planning to live in the house, but I think that solar hot water is probably more of selling point than LPG gas anyway. Paul Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 5Dec 31, 2011 10:44 am We live on bottled gas and we have a solar hot water system which is gas boosted. The only other thing on gas in the house is the stove top. We go through a bottle of gas roughly every 9 - 12 months and a bottle costs us $100. In the rental we were in, we had a gas hot water system and the stove top on gas and we went through a bottle every 2 -3 months, so the solar with gas boost has saved us heaps.
I actually ran out of gas the other day and didn't have a spare bottle. The gas man forgot to drop gas off for 3 days, but I still had hot showers that whole time Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 7Dec 31, 2011 11:03 am Thanks everyone, and Rizzo particularly, that's exactly the sort of info I was looking for as the only gas appliances we would have would be hot water and cooktop. Now, we've never lived with LPG before so a couple of dumb questions I need help with. 1. How do you know when your gas is running out - in fact do you need to know or does the LPG supplier monitor it somehow? 2. I've been told we need to have 2 bottles so we can always have one running when the other needs to be refilled. Is it easy to switch from one bottle to the other? Thanks, Ruth Our Homebuilding Thread 17th Nov - 1st meeting with PJB architect 27th Feb - Signed contract 23rd Mar - Plans approved 3rd Apr - Slab laid 18th Apr - Roof On 10th May - Lock-up 26th June - Handover Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 8Dec 31, 2011 12:04 pm We are would have been on bottled gas but opted to go all electric. We have a solar HWS with electric boost. I have to admit we were advised this was the best way to go but I rather wish we'd done what Rizzo did now. Plus because we didn't go LPG for the booster we decided not to put gas on at all. I miss my gas stove. Heat pumps are meant to be even better. No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 9Dec 31, 2011 1:05 pm We only have bottled gas here and in our old house we just had the oven and cooktop on gas and went through a bottle every 12-18 months and cost $100 per bottle. We always had 2 connected, use one and the other was a spare when it ran out you just flick the switch (gas bottles are very easy to connect and disconnect - takes less then 5 mins). We tossed up the idea of gas water or solar but as I decided on a ceramic cooktop (easier to clean lol) we figured it wasn't worth just getting gas for the water and with living in a warmer area (lovely 42 today) it would be more cost effective to go solar (plus we get rebates back on the cost so they end up very similar but no running (well minimal) costs with solar. When we enquired about how long the bottle would last we were told 4-12 weeks so it would end up costing somewhere between $400-$1200 a year. Jasmin Hickinbotham Belmont - modified Signed: February 2011 Slab should go down before 2012 My build thread https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=52310&p=799483#p799483 Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 10Dec 31, 2011 8:22 pm ChargerWA Evacuated tube solar or Heat pump hot water system. agree 100%. I wouldn't consider any other options. One of our neighbours has heat pump hot water system (stiebel eltron) for a family of 3. Total annual bill is just over $100 and there is always hot water in the house, not depending on weather etc. Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 11Jan 01, 2012 1:10 pm Thanks again everyone. We're definitely going to look into the solar / heat pump options once we get there. I think our builder is trying to help us keep the overall capital cost down, hence the recommendation for gas instantaneous. However we're prepared to bite the bullet a little in the short term as it definitely sounds like running hot water just on LPG is crazy when we can harness the heat we're moving to. Thanks, Ruth Our Homebuilding Thread 17th Nov - 1st meeting with PJB architect 27th Feb - Signed contract 23rd Mar - Plans approved 3rd Apr - Slab laid 18th Apr - Roof On 10th May - Lock-up 26th June - Handover Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 12Mar 03, 2012 3:36 pm I would absolutely go with solar, i know its a little more pricey but its so worth it and saves money in the long run. Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 13Mar 22, 2012 8:58 am We are currently building a house just out of Warrnambool, we have no natural gas to connect to, after speaking with a few people at Rheem, I ended up installing their LPG boosted solar system, as this was the best option, we should only go through one 45kg bottle per year heating the water, although we also have only tank water which is a bit colder than the water that comes out of the water main so we will see if that eventuates, If you are in Queensland it is a bit warmer than what it is down here, so it should work even better. With regard to having two gas bottles, you can get an automatic change over regulator, which will change to the full bottle when the other one is empty, the regulator goes from green to red, you just have to check every now and then and give the gas supplier a call to come and swap them over, we are paying $30 per bottle rental per year and I think about $115 at the moment for a bottle delivered Hope this helps Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 14Mar 22, 2012 9:52 am Thanks for the info Rick. Yep, we're now leaning towards Solar. Don't have to finalise quite yet as the slab isn't even down. Also thanks for telling me about the automatic changeover regulator; that will reassure hubby who had visions of the gas going out mid stir-fry! Now all we need is for this bxxxxx rain to stop so they can actually start building; all approvals etc are in so it's only the weather that's holding us up. Thanks, Ruth Our Homebuilding Thread 17th Nov - 1st meeting with PJB architect 27th Feb - Signed contract 23rd Mar - Plans approved 3rd Apr - Slab laid 18th Apr - Roof On 10th May - Lock-up 26th June - Handover Re: No naturaL gas - what hot water system is best 15Mar 22, 2012 12:14 pm Our HWS is solar with LPG boost, we've been living in our house since xmas & we haven't had to switch to gas at all & we've never run out of hot water. We're a family of 4 Building our custom design "Dream Home" Follow my Build - viewtopic.php?f=31&t=46820 Contract Signed - 28/04/11 Siteworks Commenced - 20/06/11 I want to build a decking to the drawn shape outlined in black. The problem is how close can I build to the gas hot water unit? 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