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Reinstating a gas supply

Does what it says on the tin
JohnB
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Reinstating a gas supply

#207723

Postby JohnB » March 14th, 2019, 5:44 pm

We have a capped gas pipe in the house, as we've not used gas for 15 years. Now SGN want to replace the gas mains in the street, which involves threading plastic pipe through the existing one. They won't do this for a property not using gas, indeed they will cut off the pipe at the street end.

I'm planning to sell the house soon, should I try and get a gas meter added (£80) and pay £80 p/a standing charge to avoid the problem that the buyers of the house would want gas, and are told they need a new trench dug from the road, at £800 and lots of disruption? Is it likely that would be the outcome, or would a new supply just mean doing a new connection in the street and rethreading the existing pipe, which I guess would be a lot cheaper and not disruptive.

I've arranged for a live check, but I worry that one part of SGN won't talk to another, and the new pipe people will have been and gone before I could arrange for a new meter.

The house is a wreck, the new buyers would be gutting it anyway.

pochisoldi
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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207743

Postby pochisoldi » March 14th, 2019, 7:59 pm

JohnB wrote:We have a capped gas pipe in the house, as we've not used gas for 15 years. Now SGN want to replace the gas mains in the street, which involves threading plastic pipe through the existing one. They won't do this for a property not using gas, indeed they will cut off the pipe at the street end.

I'm planning to sell the house soon, should I try and get a gas meter added (£80) and pay £80 p/a standing charge to avoid the problem that the buyers of the house would want gas, and are told they need a new trench dug from the road, at £800 and lots of disruption? Is it likely that would be the outcome, or would a new supply just mean doing a new connection in the street and rethreading the existing pipe, which I guess would be a lot cheaper and not disruptive.

I've arranged for a live check, but I worry that one part of SGN won't talk to another, and the new pipe people will have been and gone before I could arrange for a new meter.

The house is a wreck, the new buyers would be gutting it anyway.


1) Value of house with gas supply - value of house without gas supply = zero
Rearranging the formula gives us value of gas supply = 0

2) If your chosen meter location doesn't match with the new owners plans, you've wasted your time.

Or put another way, unless you have a committed buyer lined up who wants a gas supply, and is willing to pony up the cost up front (i.e. before exchange, in case they pull out) - I wouldn't bother.

PochiSoldi

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207744

Postby Charlottesquare » March 14th, 2019, 8:05 pm

JohnB wrote:We have a capped gas pipe in the house, as we've not used gas for 15 years. Now SGN want to replace the gas mains in the street, which involves threading plastic pipe through the existing one. They won't do this for a property not using gas, indeed they will cut off the pipe at the street end.

I'm planning to sell the house soon, should I try and get a gas meter added (£80) and pay £80 p/a standing charge to avoid the problem that the buyers of the house would want gas, and are told they need a new trench dug from the road, at £800 and lots of disruption? Is it likely that would be the outcome, or would a new supply just mean doing a new connection in the street and rethreading the existing pipe, which I guess would be a lot cheaper and not disruptive.

I've arranged for a live check, but I worry that one part of SGN won't talk to another, and the new pipe people will have been and gone before I could arrange for a new meter.

The house is a wreck, the new buyers would be gutting it anyway.


No idea rules re domestic supplies but we continue to pay standing charges on two commercial properties rather than have the meter etc removed. We once got caught with a block of flats we owned with one gas meter and our sub meters inside when we decided we wanted to sell the individual properties. Notwithstanding the outside pipe across the yard had happily been large enough to supply the 25 flats it was insisted we replace it as that "fact" re its size could not, from the records, be confirmed. About £40,000 later we had a new supply and 25 official meters and all the internal pipework within the building also had to be replaced.

If selling then I think I would pay the £80 and the standing charge, if it sells quickly enough the s/chg for the hopefully brief period ought not to amount to very much.

richlist
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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207746

Postby richlist » March 14th, 2019, 8:16 pm

It seems that new properties from 2025 will not be built with a gas supply. So, no gas boiler/cooker and no gas central heating.

Electricity is the future not fossil fuel gas. Around 50% of electricity production is already provided from renewables and the plan is to increase that.

The future is likely to be air sourced heat pumps.....you can buy them now.

Move your house into the rest of the 21st Century and forget about gas.......wouldn't want to be holding shares in British Gas either.....surely it's all down hill for them from now on.

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207766

Postby gryffron » March 14th, 2019, 11:20 pm

richlist wrote:Electricity is the future not fossil fuel gas. Around 50% of electricity production is already provided from renewables and the plan is to increase that.
The future is likely to be air sourced heat pumps.....you can buy them now.
Move your house into the rest of the 21st Century and forget about gas.......wouldn't want to be holding shares in British Gas either.....surely it's all down hill for them from now on.

Not relevant to the OP. Who is selling right now, today, when plenty of people still want gas. If it helps make the sale, I'd say £100 investment is well worth paying.

According to google our electricity has only just passed 25% from renewables. And often least when we most need it.
Air sourced heat pumps can save money when it is cool, but they still work very poorly below 0 as they are prone to icing. So you need a full heating system AS WELL as your heat pump.
And British Gas are a huge supplier of - electricity. They seem to be well ahead of the game.

Gryff

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207830

Postby Slarti » March 15th, 2019, 10:14 am

Well we are looking to move, soon and have already rejected a number of properties, because they don't have gas.

Electricity may be the future, but gas is the now, as far as we are concerned.


Unless the property has a good recent solar installation, then I would try and talk Mrs S into electric cooking.

Slarti

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207863

Postby fisher » March 15th, 2019, 12:28 pm

gryffron wrote:Air sourced heat pumps can save money when it is cool, but they still work very poorly below 0 as they are prone to icing. So you need a full heating system AS WELL as your heat pump.Gryff


This is not correct. We have a NIBE Air Source Heat Pump which has been installed for 5 years as our only source of heating, and hot water in our 5 bedroom house and it has coped at temperatures as low as -8 outside. We have the house heated to around 21 degrees and the hot water to 52 degrees. Our NIBE Air Source Heat Pump is rated down to -15 outside temperature.

Air Source Heat Pumps, as the name suggests, take heat from the air and so the warmer the air outside is the more efficient they are (i.e. the cheaper they are to run), but they will still work at sub zero temperatures they will just be less efficient at producing that heat as the outside temperature decreases. When you average it out over a year our experience is that the cost of running it is about the same as if we had a gas boiler.

When they ice up they run a defrost cycle that last a few minutes in order to melt the ice.

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207873

Postby pochisoldi » March 15th, 2019, 12:48 pm

gryffron wrote:Air sourced heat pumps can save money when it is cool, but they still work very poorly below 0 as they are prone to icing. So you need a full heating system AS WELL as your heat pump.


If they are prone to icing, shirley all you need is a secondary replacement heat source built in to the system.
Wouldn't surprise me if a heat pump system transferring heat to a wet system already had an electric heating element in place to provide a boost function. Such a device, whilst having a capital cost, adds nothing to running costs when inactive.

PochiSoldi

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207885

Postby Dod101 » March 15th, 2019, 1:30 pm

Slarti wrote:Well we are looking to move, soon and have already rejected a number of properties, because they don't have gas.

Electricity may be the future, but gas is the now, as far as we are concerned.


Unless the property has a good recent solar installation, then I would try and talk Mrs S into electric cooking.


Slightly off topic. I live in a property which has no gas supply although it had bottled gas when we took it over. We got that removed pronto. I do not miss gas except for the boiler where I have oil. It is a pain because it seems to me to be more expensive but even if that were not a problem I still need to get it physically delivered to a holding tank.

Cooking by electricity is a doddle and we would certainly not go back to gas. An induction hob is very easy to use and to clean and modern electric ovens ditto. get Mrs S to go to a kitchen showroom and she will see what I mean.

Dod

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207952

Postby Slarti » March 15th, 2019, 4:45 pm

Dod101 wrote:Cooking by electricity is a doddle and we would certainly not go back to gas. An induction hob is very easy to use and to clean and modern electric ovens ditto. get Mrs S to go to a kitchen showroom and she will see what I mean.


Them as won't look, won't see :cry:

Slarti

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207959

Postby richlist » March 15th, 2019, 5:07 pm

fisher wrote:
gryffron wrote:Air sourced heat pumps can save money when it is cool, but they still work very poorly below 0 as they are prone to icing. So you need a full heating system AS WELL as your heat pump.Gryff


This is not correct. We have a NIBE Air Source Heat Pump which has been installed for 5 years as our only source of heating, and hot water in our 5 bedroom house and it has coped at temperatures as low as -8 outside. We have the house heated to around 21 degrees and the hot water to 52 degrees. Our NIBE Air Source Heat Pump is rated down to -15 outside temperature.

Air Source Heat Pumps, as the name suggests, take heat from the air and so the warmer the air outside is the more efficient they are (i.e. the cheaper they are to run), but they will still work at sub zero temperatures they will just be less efficient at producing that heat as the outside temperature decreases. When you average it out over a year our experience is that the cost of running it is about the same as if we had a gas boiler.

When they ice up they run a defrost cycle that last a few minutes in order to melt the ice.


Yes, we have it installed in our Spanish property......and before anybody mentions it......it does get bloody cold in winter, at or just below freezing in Jan & Feb is not unusual. It works great, provides all the heat we need and doubles as an aircon unit in summer.

......and anyone with solar panels can have virtually free heating during the day.

It's the future.

I visited my dentist on Wednesday and was pleasantly surprised that he'd had an air sourced heat pump system installed in the building......very cosy, comfortably warm.

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#207968

Postby JohnB » March 15th, 2019, 5:28 pm

I wondered if people now faced with installing heating (they won't like our 60 and 40 yo storage radiators) will go for central heating and radiators, or under-floor and heat pump. As for cooking, the 50 year old electric Belling (as featured in an episode of the Sweeney I watched last month) keeps on going.

Hopefully Mum will live forever, so I'll never need to sell. Not sure she sees it that way...

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#208010

Postby richlist » March 15th, 2019, 8:22 pm

gryffron wrote:And British Gas are a huge supplier of - electricity. They seem to be well ahead of the game.

Gryff


Not for customer service.

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#208814

Postby JohnB » March 20th, 2019, 10:29 am

A chap has confirmed there is gas to the house and re-entered us into the system, so hopefully the mains replacement people who I can see down the street will do the spur to the house, and I have a month to get a meter, which I'm inclined to do for a quiet life. What companies do low standing charges (I know some do zero, but I can't see them taking on a household that won't use any gas). I've found 13.3p/day from Npower, but the comparison sites error checking don't like suspiciously low usage figures I enter.

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#208825

Postby beseeinyou » March 20th, 2019, 11:48 am

My brother uses Ebico who have a zero standing charge tariff for his partially used holiday flat.

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#208986

Postby 88V8 » March 20th, 2019, 11:04 pm

Slarti wrote:
Dod101 wrote:Cooking by electricity is a doddle and we would certainly not go back to gas. An induction hob is very easy to use and to clean and modern electric ovens ditto. get Mrs S to go to a kitchen showroom and she will see what I mean.

Them as won't look, won't see :cry:


We used gas for 37 years and liked our particular gas hob so much that in 1980, I moved it from house 1 to house 2.
But here we are in house 3 with no gas.
And an induction hob (Siemens, used, eBay) that knocks gas into a cocked hat.

However, as regards the OP's question, in a gas area I would want a gas supply and gfch, so I think he has done the right thing.

V8

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Re: Reinstating a gas supply

#209032

Postby pochisoldi » March 21st, 2019, 9:33 am

JohnB wrote:A chap has confirmed there is gas to the house and re-entered us into the system, so hopefully the mains replacement people who I can see down the street will do the spur to the house, and I have a month to get a meter, which I'm inclined to do for a quiet life. What companies do low standing charges (I know some do zero, but I can't see them taking on a household that won't use any gas). I've found 13.3p/day from Npower, but the comparison sites error checking don't like suspiciously low usage figures I enter.


You could just game the system - play along with getting a new supply until the pipework gets replaced and then cancel the order...

Failing that Ebico are quite happy to take over the existing gas supply to a property with zero consumption.
Not sure if they would take you on as a "new supply" customer though (but, other than any exit charge from the supplier that gets the meter fitted, there's nothing to stop you from switching)


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