That accounts for the legal mechanism. Do we have any examples of making LPG (or any other energy source) compulsory?
Sorry Iāve been MIA my husband has had some serious health problems requiring hospitalisation, this topic hasnāt been my priority. Spoke with my son, he said he had to have gas hot water for his BASIX certificate. Not sure what that is and at the moment I really donāt care. Sorry for the late reply.
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https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/basix
That is an energy efficiency score that has to be ticked off.
The BASIX system is a energy efficiency evaluation system that is enforced by government. You need a satisfactory BASIX rating to get new houses approved.
BASIX recognises the following types of hot water systems:
- Solar ā flat plate panels or evacuated tube collectors (gas or electric boosted)
- Heat pump (air source for all dwellings or ground source for single dwellings only)
- Gas ā instantaneous or storage
- Wood combustion (in single dwellings only ā not multi-dwellings)
- Electric ā instantaneous or storage (in new dwellings, and alterations and additions, if offset by solar PV)
They go on to say that solar hot water is the most efficient.
I can see that your son was compelled to make some choices about hot water systems (and other energy matters) to get his BASIX approval. That does not say that the only way he could have qualified was to use LPG hot water, solar would also have been accepted. He may have decided that gas was the best for him but I see nothing to say it was the only choice.
Unless there is more to this that we have not discovered my conclusion is that home builders are not being compelled to use gas for water heating.
What the purchaser was offered, any alternatives, how the marketing presented the specifications are worth answering. Was it in such a way that the choice for gas was āthe best way to goā to get the BASIX rating for the home, or did it appear the only way?
Car dealerships had/have a history of presenting dealer servicing as essential for warranty, and certain after market products or schemes essential for extended warranty. All quite false in many respects.
How many home purchasers know all the building codes, regulations, BASIX compliance, etc? Itās open to abuse. The building company is free to limit what it offers in a contract. One does not need to agree, but neither does the builder. No contract, no home?
Honestly I donāt know. I saw the pit in his front yard and asked him what it was for. When he said a gas bottle I asked what he was using gas for. He said hot water and cook top. I asked why he would choose gas hot water he said because he had to. 2 of his neighbours were standing with us at the time, 1 from next door, the other from across the road. They both said they had to have it also, but their bottles werenāt buried.
Clarifying. A land development is where blocks are prepared, roads built, services are laid, and then are sold off to buyers who then engage builders to build a house.
On the other hand, a developer could prepare land and build houses, and then sell off the completed homes.
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How does that help to progress the discussion?
Note:
A developer could enter into a deal with a builder to set aside exclusively certain or many blocks of land in an estate. There are two contracts for the buyer to sign, one for the home and one for the land, conditional on the other.
Or
There may also be a number of display homes or spec homes. The builder owns the home. The developer retains ownership of the land they sit on. Been there, done that once only. Times and state dependent on what one might find.
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It doesnāt. A poster asked for me to clarify what I meant in one of my posts. So I did based on my view. Problem with that?
My error on that.
Note for one of the companies with a display home on the Ridgeway Estate their typical arrangements are explained by. āhttps://www.metricon.com.au/home-truths/how-do-home-and-land-packages-work
Probably the most plausible explanation. You go to a major builder for one of their design houses and you get what they specify. Maybe you can change a few things as options, but the appliances would be common to the design.
Maybe the builder made it seem that way, that within the package offered gas was the best way to get a BASIX tick but that is speculation. I donāt think this is worth chasing any further.
Agree. Are new home builders being compelled to connect to gas?
From anything presented in this topic, no.
Myth busted.
Obviously I donāt have the documents for that development but looking at it in general terms:
- contract law - they are selling something to you - they can impose whatever restrictions they like in the sale to you and you either agree or you donāt (this may not cover your imposition of restrictions on future purchasers but that is a problem for the future)
- strata law - or other applicable structure that applies to a related group of individually salable real estate properties
- the original development consent i.e. the developer made certain commitments to government (local or state or both) and it is incumbent on the developer to ensure that those commitments are met even if that ultimately impacts on the purchaser (not the developer) - these restrictions would include aesthetic and environmental
And it is noted above that under BASIX in NSW (at one point of time in the past) if you went with storage hot water then you had to have PV.
In terms of minimising up front cost, it is likely to be cheaper to use instantaneous gas than be forced to put in PV (if you would not otherwise have chosen PV anyway). If reticulated gas is not made available on the estate by the developer, you are unlikely to have it put in yourself (too expensive), so you would be āforcedā to go with bottled gas.
Digressing slightly, there are greenfield developments where the developer has made a deal with Telstra that effectively locks everyone in the estate to Telstraās particular offering for that estate.
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Oh WOW
So different here in Vic where we are encouraged to build all electric homes - donāt think itās compulsory (yet!) Watch this spaceā¦
If you read the other replies to the OP I think you will conclude that it isnāt compulsory where he is either.
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Well ā¦ if you read the first link in the first post of this topic, you will see that that is a very recent change in Vic i.e. not yet 12 months old.
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Victoria has spoken more emphatically.
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As the ACT has already done. As of 1 January 2023, new gas connections are banned. New developments had not been allowed to install gas reticulation for some years now, but new connections had been permitted to houses in suburbs that already had gas, until this legislation was passed.
