Appliances connected and certified, leaks made safe. And before any of that, a straight answer on whether gas reaches your flat at all and whose supply it actually is.
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In a house, gas is simple: it arrives, there is a meter, it is yours. In a 1960s walk-up it is frequently not that at all, and the difference decides who gets to make decisions.
A good number of these blocks were never plumbed for gas to individual flats. They were designed around electric storage hot water and electric cooking, and that is still what they have.
Others do have gas, but as a single service into the building rather than a meter per unit. Where that is the case the incoming supply is common property, so a new connection into your flat is an owners corporation matter rather than something you can arrange yourself.
None of that is obvious from inside a kitchen, and it is a miserable thing to discover after the appliance has been delivered. A short visit establishes which arrangement your block has and whose decision the next step is.
Get out, avoid anything that could spark, knock on the doors you pass on your way, and ring us from outside.
Open what you can, get everybody out, and touch nothing electrical on the way. In a walk-up that means the stairwell too.
Ring from outside the building and tell the strata after-hours number as well as us, because the risk is not confined to your flat.
A licensed gas fitter answers when you ring, and where the network's emergency crew is the right first call we will say so.
A great many six-packs were built around electric storage hot water and electric cooking, and gas never reached the individual flats.
So the first question before any conversation about appliances is whether gas actually arrives at your door, and the answer is not the same across every building.
It is worth establishing before buying anything rather than after it is delivered.
Where the block has a single incoming service rather than a meter per flat, the supply is common property and the owners corporation has a direct interest in what is connected to it.
That affects capacity, isolation and billing, and it means work in one flat is not purely that owner's business.
Finding out which arrangement your building has takes one look at the meter position and one question to the strata manager.
An appliance sitting in a hallway while a committee decides whether you may connect it is an avoidable situation and a common one.
The questions are whether gas reaches your flat, whether the supply has capacity, and whether anything crosses common property. All three are answerable in advance.
None of them is difficult and all of them are considerably easier before a purchase.
It is illegal anywhere in NSW. In a block it also means a claim arising from it affects everybody in the building rather than only the person who arranged the work.
Gas fitting is licensed work with no small-job exemption, and unlicensed work cannot be certified at any point afterwards.
Which is why an owners corporation is entitled to ask, and why you want to be able to answer.
Adding an appliance is a calculation against total demand rather than a connection, and in a block that demand includes every other flat on the service.
The input rating on the appliance plate is the number the calculation runs on, and a photograph of it is enough to start.
Where the sums do not work, appliances starve each other, and a burner that drops off when somebody else runs a shower is nearly always this.
An appliance burning indoors consumes air from the room, and flat kitchens in these buildings are small and most have been renovated at least once.
Renovation almost always makes a room tighter, and a powerful rangehood removing air from a sealed kitchen works against an appliance rather than helping it.
It is worth a look if the kitchen has been redone, which in most of these flats it has.
Certifying a new appliance on a line losing pressure elsewhere achieves nothing, so the existing installation gets tested as part of connecting anything new.
In a building of this age with decades of individual alterations behind it, that occasionally finds something.
When it does we tell you before doing the work rather than after.
Sizing, testing, clearances, flueing and ventilation, all specified rather than judged, and all hidden the moment the work is finished.
You can look at a tap and form a view about it. You cannot look at a gas installation and tell whether the pipe was sized correctly or whether the line held pressure.
Which is why the document matters more here than anywhere else on this site, and why we will not do gas work without issuing one.
A Certificate of Compliance is legally required and it records what was done, that it was tested, and under whose licence.
In a strata scheme it belongs in the building's records as well as yours, because the next person to deal with that installation may not be you.
Take a photograph of it for yourself as well. Documents that pass through several hands go missing.
In a six-pack the meters are frequently grouped in one location, and which meter serves which flat is not always labelled or correct.
That matters in an emergency, when somebody needs to isolate one flat quickly and cannot afford to guess.
Confirming and labelling them is a short piece of work and it is one of the more useful things a small scheme can do cheaply.
Agreed in writing before we start. These are indicative 2026 ranges. The Certificate of Compliance is included on every gas job and is never charged as an extra.
Any hour. Isolated and made safe first, then diagnosed properly.
Whether gas reaches your flat, and whether the supply is yours or the building's.
Cooktop, oven, heater or bayonet onto an existing point, tested and certified.
Priced on the run and what it has to pass through.
On every gas job. Keep one and lodge one with the building records.
On a suspected leak the supply is isolated first, and in a block that may mean the building's supply rather than one flat's.
Whether gas reaches your flat, whether it is separately metered, and therefore whose decision the next step is.
To the Australian Standards by a licensed gas fitter, at the price agreed in writing beforehand.
Tested again on completion, with your Certificate of Compliance issued on the spot and a copy for the building records.
Get everyone outside, knock on the doors you pass, avoid anything that could spark, and ring us from outdoors. A licensed gas fitter answers at any hour.
Call 1300 381 569Stop reading and act. Do not touch a light switch, a power point or anything that could spark, and do not use a phone inside the building. Open doors and windows on the way out, turn the gas off at the meter if you can safely reach it, get everyone outside, and ring from outdoors. In a block, knock on the doors you pass on the way. We answer 24 hours.
Worth establishing before you buy an appliance rather than after it is sitting in the hallway. Plenty of these blocks were never plumbed for gas to individual flats at all, and were designed around electric storage hot water and electric cooking. Others have gas to the building but not to every unit. It takes us a short visit to confirm what actually reaches your flat, and that is a far cheaper conversation than a return.
It means the incoming supply is common property rather than yours, and that changes who decides. A number of these blocks were built with a single service to the building instead of a meter for each flat. Where that is the case, a new connection into your unit is a matter for the owners corporation, not something you can simply arrange. We establish which arrangement your block has and tell you plainly whose decision it is before anyone spends money.
Sometimes straightforwardly, sometimes not at all, and the answer depends on the building rather than on you. If your flat has its own metered supply with capacity, it is generally a normal connection job. If the building has a single service, or there is no gas to your unit, it becomes a strata question and possibly a significant one. Ask us to check before you order the appliance, because that sequence saves a lot of grief.
Ask for the number and search it on the NSW Fair Trading public register. It takes about a minute and ours is 368473C. Unlicensed gas work is illegal in NSW, and in strata it carries an extra sting: a claim arising from it can affect the whole scheme's insurance, not just the flat where the work was done.
Always, on every gas job, without asking. A Certificate of Compliance is legally required for gas work in NSW and it records what was done, that it was tested, and under whose licence. In strata, lodge a copy with the building records as well as keeping your own, because the owners corporation will need it and nobody will be able to find it in ten years otherwise.
A leak test and make-safe is $200 to $450. An availability and ownership check, establishing whether gas reaches your flat and whose supply it is, is $180 to $350. Connecting an appliance to an existing point is $250 to $550. A new gas point within your own lot is $450 to $1,200. The Certificate of Compliance is included on every gas job.
Tell us what you are trying to do and whether you know if your flat has its own gas meter. If you are not sure, that is the first thing we will check.
Availability and ownership established before you spend anything, and a Certificate of Compliance on every job.
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