Why You Should Consider Giving Gas Appliances A Chance

If you are getting your home renovated, or are planning on picking up some new appliances, then you will likely have to make a choice between using gas or electricity, although electricity tends to be more common, there are a lot of advantages to using gas appliances. Gas powered appliances can be used to do a wide range of daily household activities such as: cooking, heating water, washing clothing, heating the house, heating the pool, and much more. Obviously, not everyone can use gas appliances, but for those who have the option, it is worth consideration. So, we figured it might be helpful to talk about gas appliances, to help those who might be on the fence about switching over to gas. This article will give you some insight into the benefits of gas appliances, as well as some important info that anyone looking to buy a gas appliance should know about.

Things you should know before buying a gas appliance

First off, if you want to get a gas appliance installed in your house, you need to turn to a licenced gasfitter. Much like with electrical work or plumbing work, the laws around working with gas and gas appliances are strict, and attempting to install gas appliances by yourself (assuming you are not a licenced gasfitter) is a great way to get in trouble with the law and get yourself slapped with some heavy fines. It is not just installing either, if you plan on doing anything involving disconnecting or connecting gas lines, you need to get a licenced professional (so if you are doing some work in your house, and you want to just quickly move a gas appliance around, you need to use a licenced gasfitter). The actual specific penalties may vary from state to state, but they all require that any work involving gas be done by a licenced professional. We offer professional gasfitting services, and there are plenty of tools and sites to help you get in touch with professional gasfitters.

When it comes time to actually shop for an appliance, you should only get a gas appliance that has been properly inspected and certified. There are a number of organizations dedicated to inspecting gas appliances and ensuring that they will work properly and safely. The most common one you may see or recognize is the AGA, or the Australian Gas Association; but there are a bunch of other organizations that certify gas appliances, so if you do not immediately see the AGA mark, do not skip on the appliance, it may have been certified by another organization (another common one is Vipac).

General maintenance and safety tips

When it comes to maintenance and safe use of gas appliances, the topic is in-depth enough to warrant a full article, but we can give some general tips. First off, gas appliances should be inspected by a licenced professional on a yearly basis or so, in order to ensure that everything is working properly and more importantly, safely. Dust is also something that you need to consider when you have gas appliances. Dust can get into important parts of the appliance, it will settle and then become a potential fire hazard. Finally, make sure you do not “crowd” your gas appliance; so, do not put boxes or objects around it, make sure there is no debris around a gas appliance, especially flammable debris like stacks of paper, fabrics, etc. Now, gas appliances are not necessarily more dangerous than electric ones, it just never hurts to be extra cautious when dealing with anything related to gas.

Some benefits of using gas appliances

Reliability

If you have a lot of electric appliances in your house, then power outages basically prevent you from doing anything, washing clothes, having hot water, cooking food. However, this is not the case for those who use gas appliances. Gas appliances continue working even when the power is out. Want to cook your family a hot meal during a particularly bad thunderstorm? Well, if you use a gas powered stove, you can, if you use an electric stove, you have to wait until the power company gets around to restoring your electricity. Want to keep the hot water flowing? Again, if you use a gas powered water heater, you can still take a hot shower even if the lights are not working. Also, because of the way gas lines are set up, you do not need to worry about constant outages due to bad weather or natural disasters the same way you need to with power lines. This will especially appeal to those who live in parts of the country with bad weather, and who often suffer from power outages.

Cost

Of course, probably the biggest selling feature of gas appliances is that they cost less to run than electric appliances. Just how much cheaper depends heavily on a variety of factors, including how efficient the appliance in question is, and how cheap the gas prices are in your particular area. Gas prices are rising somewhat, so whether gas will be the cheaper alternative in the future remains to be seen, but for the moment at least, changing over to gas appliances can save you some money in the long run. Obviously, actually having gas appliances installed will likely wipe out the initial savings, but over time you will begin to see the savings trickle in. Also, as an added bonus, unlike with electricity, you will not be charged extra for using gas in peak hours, you will be charged the same no matter when you use your gas appliances.

Overall

Switching over to gas can be a serious investment in terms of time and money, but the long term savings, as well as the added reliability, make it a worthwhile option for those who have the ability to use gas appliances. So, if you are interested, pick up the phone and give us or your local gasfitter of choice a call to talk about getting gas appliances installed.