LPG - Should you change
to it ?
Have Your Natural Gas
Line Charges Gone Up?
Has a Natural Gas monopoly
put their line charge or daily Charge up recently? Is the daily
charge more than the gas used?
Should you convert your
existing gas appliances to LPG? or should you go electric?
You should not be too
quick to disconnect if you are a big user of energy, particularly
water heating and space heating.
Have you seen our web
page on LPG and The Cost of Water Heating?
What's Involved in conversion
from Natural Gas to LPG?
- Determine if the appliance is approved to run on LPG.
- Determine if the appliance will run on LPG.
- Change the injectors on the main burners to LPG injectors.
- Change the pilot injector to LPG.
- Change the low flame setting for each burner in the appliance.
e.g. 4 burners in a hob and six in a gas stove.
- Remove the natural gas regulator and reconnect the pipe work.
- Re-lable the appliance LPG.
- Apply for a LPG service.
- Install concrete pads for the bottles if outside. The large
25 and 45 Kg bottles must me in a position the LPG supplier will
change them over when empty, other wise you will be changing them.
If you want just a hob or cooker you could put a 9kg or smaller
bottle next to the appliance. If in a cupboard it will need to
be ventilated. Avoid cupboards if possible.
- Fit change over valves and pipe work to the bottles.
- Call the Natural Gas Utility and request disconnection of meter
and closure of account and final reading.
- If installing more than 100kg of LPG i.e. large users, a Dangerous
Goods Licence will be needed. Perhaps a Resource Consent might
be needed depending on the Town Plan in your area which might
change in the future for large quantities.
The running Costs are
similar or higher than electric. The lowest electric power price
is 5.6 cents per kilowatt night rate for water heating or space
heating verses 12 cents approx or more for LPG. There are lots of
electric rates depending on what you want the power for.
Should
you change from Natural Gas to Electric?
The process is more simple.
- Check with us to determine if the house has sufficient electric
power to install an electric stove. Some houses don't. This means
a larger cable from the street needs to be installed. Remember
electric space heaters are relatively cheap compared to gas appliances.
- Electric water heaters are storage type. You will need more
storage than with gas. A tank takes about 5hrs to heat from cold.
Ask for the night rate if you are a small hot water and heating
user. If using the night rate for heating you will need a nitestore
heater .
- Check Electric rates. Calculate electricity used compared to
gas.
- After you have done the home work to make sure your not making
a mistake install new electric appliances. Take out gas appliances.
- Call Natural Gas Utility and request disconnection of meter
and closure of account and final reading.
- Remember electricity is sometimes cut off, gas rarely is ever
cut off.
- Cap off the gas pipes.
- The result - no more gas daily charge. Your energy cost drops
to 5.6 to 6.5cents per kilowatt although its rising for the night
rate. If you use a lot of hot water you will need to go the next
step up to the controlled rate 9-12 cents per kilowatt and rising.
If you are an even bigger user stick with Natural gas at
6 to 8 cents per kilowatt. The line charge will be irrelevant.
But I only have a cooker!
Gas cookers or hobs can
be connected up with a small portable LPG bottle, usually 9kg or
smaller. The rules in the above list still apply, but there are
some extra rules about where the bottle can go.
You may want to put the
bottle in a cupboard under the sink.
There must be no electrical
equipment in that cupboard, eg no waste disposer, nor any electric
hot point. The cupboard must be ventilated to the outside also.
If you can not ventilate the cupboard to the outside then the bottle
can not go there and must be outside the cupboard.
If the cooker or hob is
natural gas we normally obtain a bottle, regulator and hose, and
some pipe work to connect those items to the cooker. We need a conversion
kit if there is one. The conversion kits can be hard to get.
The usual saving as at
May 2004 is $360.00 in line charge each year less the cheaper cost
of natural gas. Probably $20-40.
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