Cooktops connected, leaks made safe, and a compliance certificate lodged on every job. Houses and apartments, including the buildings where what you can do is set by by-laws rather than by the pipework.
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Gas here splits cleanly along the same line everything else does: what building you are in.
The apartments are the more constrained world. Many were built with gas run to the kitchen for a cooktop and nowhere else, and some have no gas connection at all. The limiting factor is almost never the plumbing. It is that anything requiring a flue, a facade penetration or a new run crosses common property, and that is a by-law question the owners corporation answers, not us.
The older houses are the opposite problem: too much history rather than too little. A century-old house has usually had its gas extended repeatedly, a cooktop added here, a heater there, hot water swapped twice. Every one of those is a joint, and the ones that give trouble are almost always at a modification rather than in the original run.
The third thing we see is appliances rather than pipework. A heater fired up on the first genuinely cold morning after sitting untouched since last winter is the classic call, and it is a service rather than a repair.
Get out, leave the switches and the intercom alone, and ring from outside the building. In a unit block tell the building manager too, because a riser affects more than your lot.
Open what you can, get everybody out, and touch nothing electrical on the way. In a building that includes the corridor.
Ring from outside and tell building management as well as us, because the risk is not confined to your apartment.
A licensed gas fitter answers when you ring, and where the network's emergency crew is the right first call we will say so.
Original runs in sound copper rarely fail by themselves. What fails is a connection: a thread, a union, a fitting at an appliance or a point that has been disturbed.
So an inspection looks at the joints rather than at the length of pipe between them, which is the opposite of what most people expect.
It also means work done recently is worth checking as carefully as work done decades ago.
Many unit blocks here have gas run to the kitchen and nowhere else, sized for exactly that and for nothing more.
Adding a point elsewhere in the apartment means new pipework, which frequently crosses common property, and it means checking the riser has capacity for the additional load.
Both are answerable and neither is quick, so they get raised before an appliance is bought rather than after.
Almost every gas appliance beyond a cooktop needs to get combustion products outside, and in an apartment that means a penetration through the building's fabric.
That is common property, it has required clearances from windows and vents that may belong to other apartments, and it needs the building's agreement.
It is the single most common reason a straightforward-sounding appliance turns out not to be possible in a unit.
Gas lines are sized for a load. A modern six-burner cooktop can demand considerably more than the run was built to deliver, particularly in a building.
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 in a block that can mean somebody else's appliance rather than your own.
The older houses here have had gas extended and altered by successive owners, frequently without any record, so what is behind the wall is unknown until it is tested.
Testing is part of connecting anything new, and it occasionally finds something.
When it does we tell you before doing the work rather than after.
An appliance burning indoors consumes air from the room, and apartment kitchens 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 since the building went up.
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 that also protects everybody else on the same service, which is a reason the owners corporation cares about how the work was done.
It is why a straightforward swap sometimes turns into a slightly longer conversation.
The pipe run and its diameter, the pressure test, the clearances around the appliance, the flue and where it terminates, and the ventilation for the room.
All of it is decided against a specification, and all of it disappears behind a wall or a cupboard on the day.
So when somebody offers to do gas work cheaply and informally, what is being discounted is the part nobody will ever be able to check.
Every gas job finishes with a Certificate of Compliance recording what was done, that it was tested, and under whose licence.
Keep a copy yourself and give one to the building. Documents that pass through a strata manager and an agent go missing.
It is what an insurer asks for after an incident and what a conveyancer asks for at sale, and it cannot be recreated afterwards.
Most apartment kitchens here have been redone at least once since the building went up, and the cooktop, the rangehood and the cabinetry have all moved in that time.
Clearances to cabinetry and to anything above the burners come from the manufacturer's instructions and they are easy to breach with a well-intentioned overhead cupboard.
It is a short check to include when anything else is being done, and it is worth asking for.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. Indicative 2026 Sydney ranges for guidance, not quotes, and the compliance certificate is included in every one of them.
The installation isolated and put under pressure, with the result explained plainly.
Cooktop or oven onto a point that is already there and correctly sized for the load.
Traced, repaired and retested. Access moves this figure more than the repair does.
Houses, priced on distance and access. In apartments this is usually a strata matter.
Issued and lodged on every gas job. Never a separate line on our invoice.
If you can smell gas we tell you to get out, leave the switches alone and ring from outside before we discuss anything else.
The installation comes off supply and goes under pressure. The gauge answers the question rather than opinion doing it.
Work to AS/NZS 5601, with the line checked for correct sizing against the appliance load rather than assumed.
Certificate issued, lodged with the supplier, copy to you with the invoice. In strata, keep one with your building records too.
Get everyone out, do not touch a switch or the intercom, and ring from outside. If it is strong, call the gas emergency line first and us second.
Call 1300 381 569Get everyone out. Do not touch a light switch, a power point, an appliance or anything else that could spark, and that includes the intercom and the lift call button. Do not use a phone inside. Once outside, turn the gas off at the meter if you can reach it safely and ring from outside the building. In an apartment, tell the building manager as well, because if it is in a riser or a common area it affects more than your lot. If the smell is strong, ring the gas emergency line first and us second.
Very common here. A lot of the unit blocks were built with gas run to the kitchen for a cooktop and nowhere else, with hot water and heating electric. It is a deliberate design decision, not something missing. It also means you cannot simply add a gas appliance elsewhere in the flat, because there is no line to it and running one crosses common property.
Usually not, and the reason is the flue rather than the gas. A flued heater needs a route to outside air, which means penetrating a wall or the facade, and that is common property governed by by-laws. An unflued heater in a modern sealed apartment raises ventilation and safety issues that most buildings will not accept and that we would not recommend. If heating is the goal, in a unit the honest answer is almost always a reverse cycle split system rather than gas.
Yes, without exception, and that includes connecting a cooktop you bought yourself. It is not paperwork for its own sake. Unlicensed gas work voids home insurance, and in strata it also exposes you to the owners corporation if something goes wrong in a shared building. Our licence number is 368473C and it is 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 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. In an apartment keep it with your strata records as well. We issue one on every gas job, included in the price.
Yes, and it is our most common gas job in this area. Bring the appliance and its installation instructions. The two things that catch people out are the connection type not matching what is at the wall, and the existing line not being sized for the appliance's load, which matters when a new six-burner cooktop replaces something much smaller. We check both before starting rather than halfway through.
It is where we find most leaks, yes. The century-old housing around here has typically had gas extended several times: a cooktop in one decade, a heater in another, hot water changed twice since. Original sound copper rarely fails on its own. Connections at modifications do. A pressure test settles it in about half an hour rather than leaving you guessing, and the drop rate tells us roughly how big any leak is before anything is opened up.
Tell us the appliance and whether you are in a house or an apartment. In a unit the first question is usually what the building will allow, not what the pipework can do.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts, and a compliance certificate on every job.
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