Anybody else in AoNZ got a nasty surprise about gas prices going up as well as electricity? The ~110% (not a typo) increase our gas provider has notified us about makes the 10% electricity price increase seem sweet and reasonable.
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We're with the only company that offers gas-only connections in our part of Wgtn. Would have to switch power & we get cheap power with our current provider.
yeah mine is too, the worst bit is I have replaced boiler and Gas HWC in the past few years (both catastrophic failures during winter) so am a bit annoyed at myself. still the hurry up is needed.
It's very hard when you have to make decisions in a catastrophic failure situation! Esp if making the change is extra $$$ when you weren't planning to spend $$$ to start with.
Yeah. The HWC will need power run to it so straight swap during COVID was the only sensible solution. It’s in the middle of the house so heat pump probably not doable but big solar is in the plans so🤷♂️
Yeah, our ultimate plan involves solar but our roof will need work/maybe replacing in the next 5-10 years and you need scaffolding to do our house which is a hefty cost, so worth waiting & saving. I joke we'll have this place exactly how we want about the time we need to move to a rest home.
It's almost all comprised of an increase to daily connection charges, too, so we can't even respond by lowering usage and make any meaningful difference. We did have a 5-year plan for getting our house off natural gas but that's suddenly become much more urgent.
This is, of course, ultimately good for carbon emissions but kind of a massive bummer for our household in terms of the significant upfront cost of replacing a hob and hot water system (having already paid to move from central gas heating to heat pumps).
HORRIFIC for renters because of course zero incentive for landlords to switch. And it's a much more pronounced issue if you're a low user since the increase is in connection fee - which translates to worse for people who can't afford to be high users.
Ughhh that sucks (and in terms of the upfront cost does your bank do the 80k at 1% for climate-friendly upgrades? We're about to do full heatpump heating & cooling on that)
They do 50k at 0% over 5 years, which we have already partially taken up late last year to do heatpumps. I found the process so exhausting (basically a full mortgage approval redux) I'm just not sure I have the energy for it anytime soon...but probably the best option.
What actually exhausts me more is the thought of all the different tradies we'll have to deal with to get gas disconnected, hob replaced, quotes for most efficient hot water system, etc etc etc. There should be a one-stop-shop! I think Rewiring Aotearoa have talked about this.
Yes, we're currently in a purgatory with our application lol. Tradie won't book a date without a 50% deposit, Bank won't lend without install date. What, exactly, are we supposed to do?
(and we had to take effectively a day's leave between us to GET all the quotes)
We're currently going through this. Cost breakdown is around 15k for the PV system, around 4k for gas removal (infinity->external electric, hob removal), around 2.5k for new induction hob and hookup and 1.5k for distribution board upgrade and hotwater divertor, so all up 23k or so.
I'm definitely going to write to them and ask for an explanation as I've also been informed they're regulated by ComCom and this shouldn't generally be possible
I think the dying nature of the business has been clearly signaled for a while, including spreading fixed costs (getting the gas from the supply across the city) to less customers. There may of course be some profiteering as they try and get as much out of it as possible before abandoning it.
The government should have sent better signals a long time ago and stopped new people signing up to gas. A lot of expensive investment is not going to see a full lifetime of use for some people.
We bought a big old house that was fully on gas, planning to convert over the next 5-10 years and accepting that cost as baked in. I don't begrudge that...I do begrudge costs going up this steeply and suddenly.
Yeah fair enough. It is tough and given the lack of clear government signals 10-15 years ago, this is an area where some sort of central support for the transition away from fossil fuels would make sense, particularly for poorer households.
Yeah I've heard this. Certainly when we were planning a build with an architect five years ago (then scuppered by COVID) they were bewildered as to why we wanted no gas - assumed we would want it for everything because it was 'so cheap'.
Thanks, this is helpful. I have been sent a price increase letter for another Wgtn household on the same plan who are paying *much* less so there's a clear need to explain what's going on. They have over-billed us in error before (to the extent of 3-4 months' usage)
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(and we had to take effectively a day's leave between us to GET all the quotes)