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Health danger to kids if we keep using gas
The Eastern Melburnian has written about the health risks of household gas. The story includes a mention of our move off gas here in Emerald, along with our own unflattering photo of Tom. The angle is health rather than cost. It quotes Australian modelling from 2018 that attributed 12.3 per cent of childhood asthma to gas cooking, and a 2013 study that found children in a home with gas cooking were 42 per cent more likely to develop asthma. About 80 per cent of Victorian homes still have gas piped in. https://www.easternmelburnian.com.au/p/kids-asthma-coalition-one-nation-gas-plans
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A month of cooking on induction
We have cooked on gas and on electric elements for years. This is our first month with a Westinghouse full induction cooktop in place of the gas. We had trialled induction on a small scale first. We bought a portable hotplate last year (also Westinghouse), as a spare in our kitchen — on the bench at home, and in the back of the car on road trips. Induction still gets confused with the electric cooking most people remember, a metal hotplate or a coil glowing red, sometimes under glass. Induction works differently — it makes the pan itself the heating element, so nearly all the energy goes into the pan rather than into the kitchen, and the glass beside the pan stays cool enough to rest a hand on. Here is what a month of it has been like. What stands out is how fast and how responsive it is. It comes on instantly, goes off instantly, and changes power the moment you ask. It boils faster than the gas did. CHOICE's testing has induction boiling a litre of water in about half the time gas…
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Did going all-electric cause our mould?
We spent 2025 and 2026 getting off gas — heat pump hot water, a multi-head air conditioner replacing the ducted gas heater, and finally an induction cooker. Then we found mould on the bed slats. Was it due to electrification? We first found this same mould, on these same slats, in December 2024 — fourteen months before the air conditioners went in, while the gas ducted heater was still doing all the heating. Whatever causes it was here first, and it was here while the gas was. Gas cooking turns out to actually make it worse. Burning gas makes water: roughly 1.6 kilograms of water vapour for every cubic metre burnt. That is on top of the water coming out of the food or boiling water, which happens whatever you cook on. Going induction removed the extra moisture. Not to mention the benzene, which is a known carcinogen. What did change is the ventilation. The old ducted system leaked, and those leaks quietly brought in outside air. Reverse-cycle doesn't leak. Better heating, staler air.…
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Off the gas for good
91.16 cents a day for a pipe we no longer used. Cancelling it took a chatbot, a $9.13 fee, and a question about whether the house was being demolished.
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Rebate for replacing our gas stove
The rebate is worth about $200. I'll get $120. You cannot claim it yourself — and the app only accepts documents from your phone's photo gallery.
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Installing our induction stove
The crew arrived at seven. By lunchtime the gas was capped, the old Smeg was gone, and 40 amps of new circuit ran from the switchboard to the kitchen.
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Quotes to install an oven and induction cooktop
I thought connecting an oven was an afternoon and a few hundred dollars. The first quote was $3,014 — so I went looking to understand why it's such a big job.
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Oven bought in March, arrived in July
The docket said “ETA 3 weeks”. It took 106 days, six phone calls, and an oven posted back to the warehouse because nobody read the email saying hold it.
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Our last gas appliance
Our Smeg 90cm oven and cooktop. We’re replacing it with a Westinghouse 90cm oven and induction cooktop, from The Good Guys. Then we can finally get off the gas.
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Adding a second battery — Tesla finally makes it possible
When Lightning Energy installed our Powerwall 2 back in December 2023 it was great. Paired with our 12 kW Enphase/Jinko solar system and 10 kW inverter, it's been handling our fully electrified home in Emerald pretty well — five reverse-cycle ACs, heat pump hot water, EV charging, and grid outages lasting up to nine days. But as we've added more loads, I've been thinking about expanding battery storage. There was a problem, though. The Powerwall 2 is no longer CEC-approved for new installations in Australia. Tesla stopped taking orders for it in late 2024/early 2025, and as of January 2026 it's no longer on the Clean Energy Council approved list. So you can't add a second one. And until very recently, the Powerwall 3 — Tesla's current model — was completely incompatible with the Powerwall 2. They couldn't talk to each other. That meant anyone with a Powerwall 2 who wanted more storage faced a painful choice: rip out the existing battery and start fresh with new hardware. For me, that…
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Heat pump testing — how fast does it heat?
In my December post about our heat pump installation, I mentioned that one of the reasons I chose Emerald was the integrated app. It shows the tank capacity, water temperature, outdoor temperature, and lets me turn it on and off or activate Boost Mode remotely. I've since used it to answer a question: how long does it actually take to heat the water, and does outdoor temperature make a difference? Over the past couple of months, I've been taking semi-random screenshots of the Emerald app at intervals through the day, tracking the water temperature as it heats from "Low" (around 25–30°C) up to the 60°C target. I did this on 11 different days, with outdoor temperatures ranging from about 14°C to 32°C. I then used AI (Claude, by Anthropic) to read all 87 screenshots, extract the data, and plot it on a chart. The chart shows each day's heating curve overlaid, with the lines colour-coded by outdoor temperature — red for hot days, blue for cool days. We might expect to see the warmer days…
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Goodbye gas — disconnecting the ducted heating
Goodbye gas! I finally organised disconnecting the ducted gas heating at our home. If only we could see the burnt gas pouring into the air, all the time, and not just when the condensation highlights it (as in the photos). Pumping carcinogens and greenhouse gases into the air that we breathe. It’s nuts. It was costing us up to $528 per month to run the heating in winter. Our replacement air conditioning will be closer to free, thanks to our solar and battery. We recently also replaced our gas hot water with a heat pump. Our one remaining gas appliance is our stove top. Once that’s gone, we will save $35 per month just for the connection fee. And no more gas! We’re replacing the gas heating with some split air conditioners. For those who might say “what about in a blackout”? Note the power point connection on the old gas heating. Our old gas hot water heat pump had one too. They both needed electricity to run. In fact, in addition the gas consumed, the heating used about 1kW of…
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What to ask for in a battery installation
I suggest getting your installer to agree in writing that your battery installation will include: 1. Remote control via an app and/or website to monitor your battery and house power. 2. During a grid outage, the battery should provide backup for everything you need. 3. During a grid outage, solar continues to provide power. 4. The ability to curtail export of power to the grid when pricing is negative. 5. Compatibility with Amber Electric, if you might want to use them as your energy retailer. Let’s look at each in detail: 1. Using an app or website, you can: 1. Monitor power in and out of your battery, house and grid connection, instantaneous, daily and historical. 2. At any time, set your battery to a minimum charge percentage. 2. In the event of a grid outage: 1. The battery will switch over automatically. The installer should test it and show you. 2. The battery will power all of your home, up to the battery’s maximum power (which should be at least 5kW). 3. If you have three…
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Solar, battery and electrification — series intro
A few neighbours and friends have asked us lately for advice about solar panels, house battery, EVs etc. Here’s our real life experience, starting a series of posts on different topics. We installed solar and battery when we moved into our house (Emerald, Victoria) about two years ago. We already had an EV (electric car). This week, we finally got around to replacing our gas hot water with an electric heat pump. Next month we’re replacing our gas ducted heating with a multi head split air conditioning system. Overall, our solar and battery provide more electricity than we use. We’re also connected to the electricity grid so we can import when we need more, or export when we have a surplus. We aim to produce all the power that we need. On the rare times that we import electricity from the grid, our retailer bills us. More often, we export our surplus electricity to the grid, for which they give us a credit. Overall, we have more credit than debits, so we don’t have to pay anything. All…
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Heat pump installation
We finally got around to installing a hot water heat pump, to replace our gas hot water system. We were paying about $40 per month for our instant gas hot water (plus $40 connection fee). Now we’re paying nothing, because the heat pump is just using our excess solar power. Without solar, I estimate it would be costing us $8 per month to power it from the electricity grid. There are a few incentive schemes around to replace gas (or other old inefficient systems) with a heat pump. An installer will factor these into their quote. The subsidies can be significant. In our case, the total price was $4480, but it was reduced to $1650 for us to pay, after subsidies were subtracted. A hot water heat pump uses the same principle as an air conditioner (which is also a heat pump). It “pumps” heat from one side to the other. In this case, it pumps heat from the outside air into the tank of water. The basic physics is that when you compress air in a confined space, it gets hot, and when you expand…
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Why NRMA Airlie Beach is a shining EV light
The NRMA Airlie Beach Holiday Park is a shining light. EV destination chargers at each of the new cabins. Fast chargers out front for the public. Efficient electric hot water heat pumps. On site cafe and coffee. E-bikes. Walk to nearby Coles and shopping center. This is the future. Well done, The NRMA! Missing our own EV right now, still parked back in Melbourne airport.
Formerly: Tesla Tripping
Come along on our EV road trips around Australia and Europe, and follow as we progressively electrify our home in Emerald, Victoria.
Join us on the road. We set off in late 2022 and drove eastern Australia in our Tesla Model 3 — Sydney, Dubbo, Armidale, Brisbane, Cape Tribulation, then down through Queensland and back. We've since upgraded to a Model Y.
We've kept exploring — Uluru, the Snowy Mountains and Gippsland, and a longer run through Europe in 2024. There's plenty more on the map, so come along for the next leg.
At home in Emerald, in Victoria's Dandenong Ranges, we're progressively electrifying everything: rooftop solar, a home battery, a hot water heat pump, air conditioned heating and cooling, and EV charging straight from the sun. We're going fully electric, off the gas.
Got questions, or insights of your own? We'd love to hear them — please drop a comment on any post.