New Piped Gas Connection for Our Home

boovohh on 26/01/2022 - 20:01

Hey Cheapies

We are moving into a house from an apartment for the first time. The house has a piped gas connection for hot water. We aren’t really familiar with this so any recommendations on which provider is good. Thanks for your help

We are currently with mercury for electricity and 2degrees for broadband. (Broadband this year has been quite awful, looking to cancel)

Also apart from recommendation, could someone give an estimate of what average cost for piped gas per month looks like. We are 3 adults, our electricity bills per month is avg $90-100.

Thanks in advance

General Discussion

Comments

  • Kiwi on 26/01/2022 - 20:38

    The price comparison websites would be a good place to start, Glimp, Broadband Compare, Powerswitch, etc.

    Keep in mind that gas has quite a high daily charge even for low users, so it may add a bit to your bill, assuming you are on a low user plan with your monthly bill around $100.

    Another good idea could be to fix your power pricing for a while, as it looks like low user plans are being phased out, so may result in quite a large jump in price for households that use less, as the daily charge could increase by hundreds of % if providers only offer one plan.

  • Alan6984 on 26/01/2022 - 23:10

    You really need to shop around, and if you are out of contract, you might want to shop both your electricity and gas together. Personally, I keep by internet separate from my other utilities - I have found I can get better deals separately than by bundling, but your call on that.

    As an example, we are currently with Slingshot on a 'free' fibre connection (their deal from about Sep 2021 for six months for 'essential workers' - my wife qualified). Once that deal ends, I will look around for another good deal on internet, even if we are locked into an electricity contract at that point.

    Prices vary a lot based on location across providers, even sometimes across quite short distances, so there is never one best (cheapest) provider - which is why you need to get a good few quotes (the more the better).

    Alan.

    • boovohh on 26/01/2022 - 23:42

      Hi Alan

      Thank you for your response
      I personally do not like combining utilities either.

      For Internet, how has your experience been with slingshot. I got a really good deal from them but we are tied with 2degrees on a contract. I really want to break this contract as the Internet has been terrible. we are on 900/500 plan and we get 200/90 on a good day. I just don’t know what to go about it

      Thanks for other information

      • Alan6984 on 26/01/2022 - 23:55

        Hi boovohh,

        Slingshot have been fine, but I am also familiar with 2Degrees (via clients) and they seem to be good too.

        Speed issues are sometimes nothing to do with the ISP (2Degrees) but rather to do with the fibre lines company (probably Chorus). However, you would need to talk to 2Degrees to get them to do some tests / confirm the kit you are using (at the very least, the modem which is potentially a FritzBox if you use 2Degrees modem / router, plus your cable from there to your PC, and then the PC itself), to determine where there might be a problem.

        Walk with them through whatever they ask you to do - that way if it doesn't get fixed through them, they will refer it to Chorus.

        Alan.

      • Toddy47 on 27/01/2022 - 10:49
        +1

        Just a note - 200/90 internet is very fast (even if it isn't 900/500) and even a very tech savvy person wouldn't notice that as being "slow". The average gigabit fibre user averages something like 100mbit sustained down and a couple of mbit upload (during peaks, roughly 9pm).

        How are you speedtesting, even a good 5ghz wireless router (2x2 80mhz channel, directly next to router) will max out around 250mbit to an average device over WiFi. I suspect there is an issue somewhere with either router or device, and that is where I would start. Have a read of: https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=85&topicid=239…

        At this stage moving is unlikely to solve this issue, I am not aware of 2degrees having any capacity issues.

        • Alan6984 on 27/01/2022 - 12:38

          It will certainly vary, but I would not be happy if I was only getting 200 / 90.

          You can't do a proper speed test on WiFi - that's just pointless - you need a proper ethernet connection, with a good cable, and a Gigbit NIC on the device you are testing from.

          You also need to be sure the router you have can do full speeds.

        • rkl on 27/01/2022 - 13:17

          What toddy said for sure,
          Can almost guarantee that it would be your router. I get over 900 down consistantly via ethernet, and used to only get 2-300 over wifi.
          Have upgraded the router to a Asus AX, and now get over 500 down steady on my phone in most parts of the house (mesh), have gotten 700 at times if sitting in the right spot.

  • Foodie on 27/01/2022 - 00:02

    For piped gas connection expect ~$1 per day fixed line cost. ~6.5c per unit.
    The gas itself is cheap. We use $20 per month and have some pretty long daily showers.
    When it's time to replace infinity will likely look for heat pump unit, hopefully heatpump units are more wide spread and lower in price.
    We went with nova due to the cheap interest free install.

    • boovohh on 27/01/2022 - 01:47

      Hi
      Thank you for the info
      Just to understand it right
      The charges would be ~ $30 a month for fixed line and ~6.5x how much you use.
      So the bill would come Upto ~$50-60 per month?
      Am I getting that right?

      • Foodie on 27/01/2022 - 10:16

        Depending on usage yes.
        So with gas generally you generally want to have low electricity daily charge and higher power charge since generally you will use less power with gas.

        So $50-$60 on gas, like $100 on power depending.

        The annoying thing is total fixed charge for power and gas can be a significant portion of the bill.

  • thesla on 27/01/2022 - 07:22

    We are with Mercury that have the best deal for our usage when we look 1y ago. We were with Nova for 3y before but they could not keep up with the price
    Family of 4 with 2x children under 5
    Gas cooking, hot water, heating in living area. Waikato area
    Gas bill including discount:
    113nzd for Aug 2021
    73nzd for Jan 2022

    With gas, because of daily fix price around 1nzd/day (even if you are on holidays and away) it's better if you use a lot !
    If you use very little then your daily charge will be most of your gas bill.

  • Meridian on 27/01/2022 - 11:08

    Similar to others have said - its the daily fixed charge which is the pain - the cost of gas is not high at all - so ideal if your a heavy user I guess - we are not here is our bill for Jan

    Billed Period: 03/12/2021 to 10/01/2022 (39 Days) with Nova Energy - only gas alone (not sure why there are 2 lines in variable charge and they are different - maybe there a price rise?)

    Variable Charge 97 kWh 8.073c = $7.87
    Variable Charge 34 kWh 8.920c = $3.00
    Daily Charge 39 days 118.853c = $46.35
    GIC Levy 39 days 1.800c = $0.70
    GST 15% $8.69
    Credit Card Fee 0.45c

    Total $67.06

    Nova still offer a prompt payment of 15% - so that takes the actual bill to $57.07

    So out of a $57 bill nearly all of it is fixed charges. I have looked around and anyone found a much better fixed charge? I looked a while back and with the 15% off it was actually all much the same. Seems a total rip and not like you can do much when you have it piped into your house etc. This is a little extreme due to holidays and us clearly not using gas heating etc at this time of the year.. but even so, the gas bit never really goes up that much.

    I am not changing my electric or broadband as have excellent deals there already.

    • Foodie on 27/01/2022 - 18:15

      Only contact I've seen has a no fixed charge, last time I checked it wasn't worth me switching with our usage

  • eranda on 27/01/2022 - 12:03

    Maybe worth considering about this as well?

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/green-business/124127933/ch….

  • akrotohur on 27/01/2022 - 13:57

    Yeah, I hate the daily fixed charges. Given a choice, I would go for the 45kg bottles.

    • Alan6984 on 27/01/2022 - 15:27

      We have gas bottles (I just use 9kg cylinders - same as we have on the BBQ). It works out very cheap indeed, but we only use it for the stove top (and BBQ), so usage it not that great compared to using to heat water and / or general heating.

      We have four 9kg bottles (one each joined to the house and the BBQ, plus one spare for each). Even if both the connected ones ran out at the same time, we'd be good for months on both the BBQ and kitchen stove top.

      If you have the choice, I would go with bottles I think, but that is likely only relevant if building a new house, and given the proposed changes, maybe nobody should be installing gas at all from here on?

      Alan.

  • moona on 27/01/2022 - 15:17

    Contact Simplicity bundle waives the daily gas charges. And no fixed contract.
    My latest bill. They increase the cost per kWh but still works out a lot cheaper.

    Daily Charge - Gas 33 days @ 0.000 cent per day $0.00
    Usage Charge - Gas 243 kWh @ 14.600 cents per kWh $35.48
    Total Natural gas charges $35.48

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