Looking at doing a renovation of the kitchen and the hot water cylinder is in the way...
With all the current talk about gas connections being retired, would you personally still consider a switch of hot water to gas?
Posted Feb 22, 2021, 10:19 AM UTC
[deleted]
I would not.
There are plenty of electrical and solar solutions.
Either way I would get rid of the cylinder system and go endless or two endless depending on location
We have a heat pump hot water system and it's very nice. Cylinder and heat pump are outside.
I couldn't choose gas. Climate change is already in effect and I didn't want to contribute to it more than I have to.
I'm at the consent stage of a reno myself and am looking into the same question. The plans were too replace an existing internal califont with an external Rinnai Infinity. I'm in Wellington and don't really have any roof area that's ideally placed for solar water. I'm also worried that Wellington is too cold for a heat pump water system.
Can anybody recommend any people/companies that can provide some good advice here on options?
A new gas cylinder has a life span of about 10 years (with warranty) but with care and cleaning go about 15. You will go through 2 gas cylinder before the supply of gas becomes a problem to you. May as well hook up while you can. I find they heat better than electric
Yeah I just did that. Used the bottled gas. It works great. As everyone else has said, who really knows what will happen in 10-20 years. We just needed a system that would work outdoors, because like you, we needed the space in the kitchen.
If it becomes too expensive or climate unfriendly then we can always replace it with an outdoor cylinder. I’m pretty sure we’ll get 10 years or more out of it.
Yeah I’m thinking the same, will get quite a few years out of it at this stage and if I’m still at the house after 10 years I’m sure heat pump ones would have advanced
I have gas hot water, to me its just hot water, only worth doing if you're also cooking with gas too otherwise you pay line or bottle rent and will pay more. Gas cooking is great though
Just for comparison on gas cooking. We had an existing gas bottle connection. Use a standard 9kg cylinder and change only every 6 months for gas hob (electric oven). Uses very little gas to run the hob.
I'm looking at reticulated gas in coming months. Good savings and better results (ex chef). As a liberal voter I believe we will have a more conservative government in next 5 years so gas exploration may be back on the agenda.
Best value for gas is heating, water heating and then cooking.
Source: son is gasfitter.
Gas will allow no new connections to the house after 2025, but will still be around in 50 years time.
There is nothing stopping you going to gas, though I have a feeling price hikes for gas that we've had recently may continue and so electricity may be cheaper long term and would be my choice. It's a gamble though right?
Wholesale gas (natural gas and by extension LPG) supply is predicted to effectively run out/be unprofitable to operate by around 2040-2045. No new significant resources of gas in NZ have been identified in the last decade or so that can be efficiently extracted, so supply will start to decline significantly after the end of this decade. Pohokura are experiencing severe well decline at the moment, Kupe are trucking along but I'm not aware of any new drilling programs in the near future (it keeps changing hands so that should tell you a lot about the long term viability of the asset), OMV have some hope for the Maui field drilling but I'm not super optimistic, Todd have decent reserves but they are going to start really tapping into them now (they will likely be the last significant producers of gas by the late 2030s).
This is evident by the fact that Methanex (who use around half the country's supply of natural gas) intend to cease operations around 2030 just due to the lack of (cheap) supply (and thus increasing feedstock prices). This will cause a temporary reduction in demand but only short lived (they will wind down operations slowly between now and 2030, they already are by closing down the Waitara Valley reformer and announcing new redundancies this week).
In the run up between now and 2040-2045, economies of scale will start to make LPG increasingly less and less economic to use and the price will keep rising. This will naturally lead into less hydrocarbon use just through natural attrition but domestic users will suffer the most in terms of LPG sale value as they are the most susceptible to market rates (compared to long term contracts for industrial/commercial users). Importing LPG is not a viable option large scale, it is already imported during winter to cover demand but current supply offsets the extra cost of importation.
I don't believe LPG will be an affordable energy source for domestic users by 2040, let alone in 50 years time.
In saying that, I have an LPG system for cooking and infinity water. I won't be getting rid of it and I would probably replace it now, just because I really like gas cooking. The cost of a few thousand to replace the system now when you're betting on what will happen in 15+ years time is kind of irrelevant imo. The kit will probably be replaced between now and then anyways as more efficient water heaters etc come to market.
Yeah it is a gamble, I can see the price rising more after 2025
I’m in the Deep South so tankless systems that will cope when it’s a bit colder seem to be hard to find