In most of these blocks gas never reached the individual flat, and where it did the supply belongs to the building. We establish what is actually available to you before anyone buys an appliance.
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In a house, gas fitting starts with what you want connected. In a Randwick walk-up it starts with whether gas is available to your unit at all.
Most of these interwar blocks were never plumbed for gas to individual flats. Electric is what they were built around and it is usually still what they run on.
Where gas does exist it is commonly a single service into the building rather than a meter per unit. That makes the incoming supply common property, and running a line to your flat means crossing common property, which is an owners corporation decision before it is a plumbing job.
So the useful first visit here is frequently not an installation. It is half an hour establishing what supply exists, whose it is, and whether what you have in mind is even possible. That answer saves people buying appliances they cannot connect.
Gas moves through cavities and stairwells. The flat it is escaping from is not always the flat that can smell it.
Open what you can, get everybody out, and touch nothing electrical on the way. In a walk-up that includes the stairwell.
Ring from outside 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.
The assumption that every home has gas available does not hold in this housing. A great many interwar blocks were built without it and were never retrofitted.
So the first question is not which appliance you want. It is whether gas arrives at your door at all.
The building or the strata records will know, and it takes one question.
Where gas is present it is frequently a single supply serving the whole building rather than a meter for each flat.
That makes the incoming service common property, and it means what any one flat connects is not purely that owner's business.
It also affects capacity, isolation and billing, all of which are worth understanding before you plan anything.
Buildings of this age carry disused gas points. Some are dead back to the main and some are live behind a cap, and you cannot tell by looking.
So finding an old bayonet or a capped outlet is not evidence that gas is available, and it is certainly not an invitation to connect something.
It gets tested rather than assumed, and that test is quick.
They run at different pressures with differently sized injectors and components, and an appliance is manufactured for one of them.
Some models can be converted with a manufacturer kit matching the exact model, and many cannot. It is not an adjustment made on the day.
The data plate states which, plainly, and a photograph answers it before anybody drives anywhere.
Where a shared service exists, it was specified for the appliances the block was built with, and it has a fixed capacity shared by everybody on it.
Adding a hungry appliance decades later is a capacity question for the whole building rather than a preference for one flat.
That calculation happens before anything is installed, not after somebody notices a burner dropping off.
Anything running outside your own lot is on shared areas, and the owners corporation has a legitimate say in it, with a normal approval process and a normal timeframe.
The same applies to a flue penetration, which changes the outside of the building.
Starting that conversation before buying an appliance is considerably easier than starting it afterwards.
An appliance burning indoors consumes air from the room, and 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.
It is worth a look if the kitchen has been redone since the building went up.
A Certificate of Compliance is the fitter's written declaration that the work meets the standard, and it is legally required.
In a shared building it is also the record that work inside one flat was done properly, which everybody else has a legitimate interest in.
Keep a copy yourself and give one to the building. Documents that pass through several hands go missing.
Gas fitting is licensed work in NSW with no small-job exemption, and unlicensed work cannot be certified at any point afterwards.
In a freestanding house that risk is taken on your own behalf. In a walk-up it is taken on behalf of everybody in the building.
Anybody offering to connect an appliance without issuing a certificate has told you something useful about how they work.
Gas appliances came and went in these blocks over ninety years, and the branches that fed them were frequently capped at the outlet rather than removed back to the run.
A capped point behind later plasterboard is invisible and unreachable, and nothing about the room indicates whether it is live.
Where one turns up during a renovation, it gets tested and decommissioned properly rather than covered over, and that is licensed work.
Quoted at a fixed price before it starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges, and the compliance certificate is included in every one. In a block, the availability check is the line worth buying first, because it decides whether the rest is even possible.
Located, isolated and made safe. Any hour, including weekends and public holidays.
What supply reaches your flat, and whether it is yours or the building's.
Cooktop, oven or heater onto an existing point that is adequate for it.
Priced on the run and what has to be opened. Common property needs approval first.
On every gas job. Never an extra, and never optional.
Meter off if you can reach it, windows open, everyone out, neighbours told. We talk you through it before we leave.
What supply reaches the flat, whether it is metered to you, and whether the incoming service is common property.
Connection, new point or make-safe, pressure tested before anything is signed off.
Issued on completion. Keep one with the strata papers as well, because the corporation will want it.
Turn it off if you can reach the meter, get everyone out, tell the flats you pass, and do not touch a switch. Call from outside. We come out at any hour for gas.
Call 1300 381 569Do not touch a light switch, a power point or anything that could spark, and never look for it with a flame. Open windows on your way out. If you can reach your meter safely, turn it off with a quarter turn so the lever sits across the pipe. In a block, knock on the doors you pass on the way down, because gas travels through cavities and stairwells and your neighbours may not have noticed. Then call from outside. If the smell is strong, ring the emergency line first and us second.
That is the real question here, and the answer is often no without the owners corporation. Most interwar blocks were never plumbed for gas to individual units. Where gas does exist it is frequently a single service into the building rather than something metered per flat, which makes the incoming supply common property. Running a new line to your unit then means crossing common property, which is a strata decision rather than a plumbing one. We tell you which situation you are in before you buy an appliance.
Not always, and it is worth checking before you commit. In a suburb with this much turnover listings get recycled and the detail drifts. We see people arrive with a gas cooktop for a flat that has never had a gas point. Ten minutes establishing what is actually connected is cheaper than a return trip and a restocking fee.
Not before it is tested. An unused point in a building of this age may be capped at the visible end while the branch behind the wall is still live, or it may be dead back to a supply that was disconnected decades ago. Either way it needs a pressure test and a licensed eye before anything is connected to it. In these blocks that is a small job and it is not optional.
It follows the same line as everything else: pipework serving only your lot is generally yours, and the incoming service and anything on common property is generally the owners corporation's. Because the gas supply into these buildings is usually a single service, more gas work here lands on the corporation than people expect. We establish it and put it in writing so the right party is billed and the committee has something to act on.
On every gas job, and you should not accept work without one. A Certificate of Compliance is the licensed fitter's declaration that what was done meets the standard. Your insurer will want it. In a block it matters more than usual, because it is also the record the owners corporation needs showing that work on or near common property was done properly. Keep it with the strata papers as well as your own.
A leak test and make-safe is $200 to $450. Connecting an appliance to an existing, adequate point is $250 to $550. Running a new point within your own lot is $450 to $1,200 depending on the distance and what has to be opened up. Establishing what supply is actually available to a flat, and whether it is common property, is $180 to $350 and is the thing worth paying for first. Every job includes the compliance certificate.
Tell us whether it is a house or a flat and whether your unit has its own gas meter. In a block that second answer decides most of what follows.
Fixed price before we start, and a Certificate of Compliance on completion of every job.
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