Licensed gas fitting
across Castle Hill

Get everyone outside first. Do not touch a light switch, a power point, an appliance or anything else that could spark. Do not use a phone inside the house. Once you are outside, turn the gas off at the meter if you can reach it safely, then ring from the footpath. On these blocks the meter is out at the boundary, so it is worth knowing where before you need it. If the smell is strong, ring the gas emergency line first and us second.

Because that is where the gas has been added. A house on 900 square metres accumulates outdoor gas over decades: a pool heater, an alfresco kitchen, a patio heater, sometimes a pizza oven. Every one of those was a new run extended from a meter a long way off, added by a different person in a different year. Original runs rarely fail. Extensions and the joints that make them are where we find problems.

That is the question worth asking before you buy one. A pool heater is a large gas load, considerably more than a cooktop, and it is frequently added to a line that was sized in the 1980s for a stove and a hot water unit. Add distance from the meter and the pressure available at the far end drops further. The result is a heater that underperforms in a way nobody connects back to the pipework. We calculate the load against the run before connecting rather than after.

Yes, and on these blocks it matters more than most people expect. Gas pressure drops along a run, and the longer and thinner the pipe, the more it drops. A thirty metre run to an alfresco area at the back of the property is a genuinely different sizing calculation to the same appliance five metres from the meter. Getting it wrong shows up when two appliances run at once, which is exactly when you are entertaining.

Yes, without exception, and that includes connecting a barbecue point or a cooktop you bought yourself. Unlicensed gas work voids home insurance, and if something goes wrong the absence of certification is the first thing an insurer looks for. Our licence number is 368473C and it goes on every quote before you accept it.

It is the document a licensed gas fitter issues certifying the work meets AS/NZS 5601. In NSW it is lodged with the gas supplier and a copy comes to you. It matters when you sell, because a conveyancer asks for it, when you claim, because an insurer asks for it, and it is the only proof the installation was ever pressure tested. On a house that has had gas added four times over forty years, having the certificates together is genuinely worth something.

Yes, and it is a common job. Bring the appliance and its installation instructions. The two things that catch people out here are the connection type not matching what is at the wall, and the existing line not being sized for the appliance's load once you account for the distance it has to travel. We check both before starting rather than halfway through.