GET YOUR HOME OFF FOSSIL GAS - AND SAVE MONEY!

As a former oil and gas industry engineer, it's ironic that later in my career I had the opportunity with the University of Melbourne to explore how Australians can save money by switching their homes off gas.

In our own Melbourne home, my wife and I are most of the way through the switch. We now enjoy the benefits of saving hundreds of dollars per year. As a part-time home energy consultant I have helped thousands of other Australians to do the same. I have published many articles too. 

Thoroughly excited about how much money people can save (and also excited about how we can reduce our climate and environmental impact) I started the Facebook group "My Efficient Electric Home" where our 5300 members discuss every day how we can improve the performance of our homes... and SAVE MONEY! 

Recently a friend challenged me to again describe, on a single page, how Australians can save money by getting their homes off gas. Here goes! (The hyperlinks on this page will take you to plenty more information.)

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Many Australian homes have traditionally used gas for water heating, space heating, and cooking. That used to make sense because gas was cheap and the alternatives were expensive or ineffective. But technologies and energy prices change. What made economic sense in the past no longer does.

SPACE HEATING AND COOLING

You may already own a reverse-cycle air conditioner that you mostly use for summer cooling. You might never have used it for heating because you thought it would cost heaps to do so.

News flash! 

Turning on your air con in winter can be the cheapest way to heat your house. Why? Because your air con is a heat pump that uses refrigerant-cycle technology to collect FREE renewable heat from the air outside your home. The nice thing about collecting FREE heat is that it is FREE!

How much money can you save versus burning gas? Perhaps $658 per year in Melbourne or $1,733/year in Canberra. Not a bad return for simply flicking on a switch.

WATER HEATING

Would you like to use free renewable heat for heating your water too? No worries, replace your old gas or electric-resistive water heater with a heat pump. Savings? My wife and I don't use a lot of hot water but we used to pay $284/year to heat our water with gas. We now spend only $84/year to heat the same amount of water with our heat pump, a savings of $200/year.

COOKING WITHOUT GAS - AND DISCONNECTING FROM THE GAS GRID

So the last place you might be using gas is at your cooktop. Compared to a gas cooktop, modern electric-induction cooktops (not the old-style electric-resistive or "ceramic" ones your mother used to hate) can be quicker, more responsive, safer, cleaner, cheaper to operate, and look far more sleek. Eliminating this last gas-burner means you can ditch the gas grid altogether and have your gas meter taken away, while saving $327/year in gas-grid connection charges. 

Adding up all the above for a large Melbourne home, we see a savings of nearly $1,200/year, or $12,000 over ten years. 

SOLAR PV ON YOUR ROOF MAKES IT EVEN BETTER

If you have invested in solar PV on your roof, the benefits of switching to the all-electric home just get better. Savings of up to $18,000 are possible over ten years. Some Australians are already enjoying the "zero-energy-bill" home. Be assured, the zero-energy-bill home doesn't get a gas bill!

Enjoy switching and saving. I hope one day you can proudly say "welcome to my all-electric home".