Ducted Heating Installation near you

Central heating in an Australian home can be built around gas or electricity, and around air or water. The choice decides how the heat is delivered, how quickly rooms respond and what the running cost looks like once winter arrives in June.

The honest comparison starts with efficiency. A gas heater burns fuel to make heat, while a reverse cycle system moves heat that already exists outside into the house, which is why Sustainability Victoria describes electric reverse cycle as the most efficient form of electric heating and the lowest cost heating option for most Victorians. Reverse cycle also cools, so a household replacing an old ducted gas heater is often replacing two appliances with one.

Gas still has arguments on its side in specific houses. Ducted gas heating produces warm air quickly and can heat a large, leaky, poorly insulated house through a cold Melbourne morning without struggling, and some households already have the ductwork, the outlets and the gas connection in place. If you keep gas, Sustainability Victoria advises aiming for a heater rated five stars or higher and specifying ductwork insulated to an R-value of at least one, because energy lost through ductwork never reaches a room.

The two systems also fail differently. A gas system brings combustion into the house, which is why it needs a licensed gasfitter, a flue that works and a carbon monoxide spillage test at installation. An electric system brings no combustion indoors, but it does need enough electrical capacity at the switchboard. Ask each installer to quote the whole job, including the parts of it that are not the box itself.

Gas work is licensed in every state, and it is not a formality. Energy Safe Victoria states plainly that gas and electricity are inherently dangerous and that it is illegal and potentially fatal for unlicensed and unqualified people to undertake any gasfitting or electrical work. In Victoria the plumbing regulator administers licensing and registration for plumbers and gasfitters, and a practitioner carries a photo identification card listing the classes of work they may do, so you can ask to see the card and check the registered classes on the back before anyone starts.

The technical rules come from AS/NZS 5601. Energy Safe Victoria notes that AS/NZS 5601.1 and AS/NZS 5601.2 are the prescribed standards under the Gas Safety (Gas Installation) Regulations 2018, that AS/NZS 5601.1:2022 sets out requirements for the design, installation and commissioning of gas installations using natural gas, LP gas or biogas, and that gasfitters have been expected to comply in full with the 2022 edition since 30 March 2023. Sitting above that, the National Construction Code is Australia's primary set of technical design and construction provisions for buildings, produced by the Australian Building Codes Board on behalf of the Australian Government and each state and territory government.

Then there is the paperwork that belongs to you. In Victoria a licensed gasfitter must give you a compliance certificate after installing a gas appliance, the certificate must be issued within five days of the work being completed, and a separate certificate is required for each separately metered premises. It is an offence to issue a certificate for work the practitioner did not complete or supervise, and being offered a cheaper job with the compliance certificate left out is itself an offence under the Building Act 1993, because it strips you of the guarantee and keeps the work out of the regulator's audit program. Rules differ by state: in Queensland, for example, you need a licence or authorisation before doing any gas work at all, regardless of whether the work is residential, commercial or industrial, and the QBCC gasfitting licence sits alongside a separate occupational licence issued by the Chief Gas Examiner and Resources Safety and Health Queensland.

Australian winter runs from June to August, and the demand for heating trades runs a few weeks ahead of it. The comfortable time to replace a central heating system is late summer through autumn, roughly February to May, when installers have space in the diary, the house is not relying on the old unit, and a two-day job with the ductwork open does not leave anyone cold.

Replacing in the middle of winter is the opposite experience. Breakdown calls come first, lead times stretch, and a household without heat is in a poor position to compare quotes carefully. If your existing system limped through last winter, treat the following autumn as the deadline rather than waiting for the first genuinely cold morning.

Use the same visit to fix what the heater cannot fix. Draught sealing, ceiling insulation and closing off unused rooms all reduce the capacity you need to buy, and Sustainability Victoria's thermostat guidance for Victorian homes is a setting between 18 and 20 degrees Celsius, with every extra degree adding noticeably to the bill.

Support for heating upgrades in Australia is run state by state, so what you can get depends on your postcode. The clearest example is Victorian Energy Upgrades, where all Victorian households and businesses are eligible for a heating and cooling discount, private rental properties included, provided the household installs an approved high-efficiency reverse cycle air conditioner that provides both heating and cooling. The larger discounts go to households removing or replacing a ducted, whole-of-home gas heater.

The mechanics matter when you compare quotes. Accredited providers are the only organisations that can apply the discount, and the discount comes off the installed price rather than arriving later as a refund, so a quote from an accredited provider and a quote from a business outside the scheme are not directly comparable. Check that the specific model is approved, confirm the program terms before you sign, and keep every document.

Programs open, close and change their rules, so verify the current position with the scheme itself rather than relying on an installer's summary. If a discount is what makes the job affordable, get the eligibility confirmed in writing before the old heater comes out.

Three separate protections apply to a heating installation, and homeowners routinely confuse them. The manufacturer's warranty covers the appliance itself, usually with conditions about it being installed by a licensed person and serviced at stated intervals. The installer's own workmanship warranty covers the labour. The compliance certificate is the regulator-facing document confirming the gas work meets the standards, and in Victoria it is also what obliges the gasfitter to come back and fix faulty installation work.

Underneath all of that sit the consumer guarantees in the Australian Consumer Law, which the ACCC describes as automatic rights that cannot be taken away by anything a business says or does. Services must be carried out with an acceptable level of care and skill, and warranties are extra promises a business chooses to make rather than a replacement for those guarantees. A business telling you that your only remedy is the manufacturer's warranty is wrong.

Practically, keep a heating folder: the quote and its inclusions, the compliance certificate, the appliance manual and serial number, the warranty terms and the date of each service. It settles arguments about who is responsible, and it is exactly what a buyer's conveyancer asks for when you sell.