Looking to stop burning wood at his MacIsaac Rd home, Charlie Brown was quoted a staggering $46,855.60 to install 230 m of gas line, which would have also allowed his neighbours to tap into it.
The proposed line would have run about 100 m along Chivalry Dve before heading down MacIsaac Rd past Mr Brown's property at number 140 and stopping at number 144, connecting him to the boundary of where the network was initially installed.
He would then have to pay another $12,000 to a local contractor to run a gas line from his meter to his house and install two heaters.
Mr Brown said he was hoping to lessen his environmental footprint and use gas instead of burning firewood — about five trees’ worth each winter.
He said the exorbitant cost of the gas line was an example of big entities forgetting about the "little man".
“They're the big boys up there, we're the little pawns down here,” he said.
But Australian Gas Infrastructure Group chief customer officer Andrew Staniford said his organisation simply followed rules set out in the Gas Distribution System Code, which left little room to move when installing new connections.
Particularly, a clause within the code that ensures every new connection must be economic in its own right and not make existing customers worse off, means new customers must cover the cost of their own gas line, with Mr Brown's quote particularly large.
“In Victoria normally, it takes 10 m of gas line to supply a new customer, so 23 times that is a large increase,” Mr Staniford said.
“Of course I sympathise with (Mr Brown), it's an unfortunate situation and not what we want to be doing.”
Complicating matters, when Mr Brown's property was built 40 years ago it was classed as ‘rural’ rather than ‘residential’ — something that has changed in the past three rate cycles — meaning it was not fitted with gas along with some other services.
With new houses built near his being fitted with gas, Mr Brown said older properties were simply forgotten about, and called for local authorities to cover the cost of upgrading the network.
“I was hoping to get it for nothing, because all new estates have all the services there for nothing, when you buy the block of land they're connected,” he said.
“We're not in the new estate, but 40 years ago they were connecting gas up for nothing to all houses.
“What can they do? This is the big boys’ policy: Sorry mate, you're not the new estate, you can go pay for it.
“I'd still have to pay $12,000 to run it to our house from the meter; $12,000 these days is a few dollars.”
Mr Brown said the quote did little to encourage him to modernise his property and move away from burning wood for heat, which releases more carbon dioxide than gas.
“If government and those greenies are serious about looking after the forest and want us to stop cutting trees down, they should look seriously at guys like us this close to the gas that have to have it put on to the meter,” he said.
“I like the bush too, and I think I have a reasonable case here for the four houses to have gas on when it's so close.”
Victoria's Essential Services Commission encouraged Mr Brown to reach out to the independent agency with his concerns, or to contact the Energy and Water Ombudsman.
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