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The One Step Off The Grid website claims that home owners in Victoria are required to connect to the gas network. It does not give an easy way to verify this claim.

Did you know Victoria’s building code forces people to connect a new house to the gas network? The question is why?

The document has links such as

But the documents refer to installation guidelines rather than backing up the initial claim. Also, the page is written by an electrical services vendor Pure electric

I would like to have this confirmed and possibly some references to the relevant codes.

user1605665
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  • You say it doesn't give an easy way to verify this claim, but it links directly to documents from the government that you can read for yourself. – Oddthinking Jul 05 '18 at 00:09
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    [For context: I think the clash here is that the Victorian government wants people - when they are not using solar - to directly used natural gas to heat water rather use grid electricity (which is 85% brown coal in Victoria). Both are fossil fuel based, but gas is perceived as better by the government. This web-site is confounding clean solar energy from the solar cells with dirty grid energy in their description.] – Oddthinking Jul 05 '18 at 00:19
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    The document is about how to install the system and how they work not a building code with a clue to a specific question – user1605665 Jul 05 '18 at 01:03
  • @Oddthinking The document is about how to install the system and how they work not a building code that requires you to install gas. – user1605665 Jul 05 '18 at 01:05
  • Okay. It is issued by the VBA and explains the rules; I would have accepted it as an appropriate authority. FWIW, Building Codes tend to be paywalled, so it may be hard to get an answer. – Oddthinking Jul 05 '18 at 01:19
  • @Oddthinking it explains the rules for installing hot water plumbing, not rules around having to have gas connected for all houses or not. I agree hard to get an answer hence I posted it here. Hoping that somebody who knows will one day stumble across the question. – user1605665 Jul 05 '18 at 05:35
  • That seems entirely conceivable. Until very recently, this was certainly a requirement in The Netherlands. Why are you skeptical of the claim? – gerrit Jul 05 '18 at 10:49
  • I think you have been misled by the poor wording. They don't day all homedls must be connected to gas. They don't say all homes must be connected to electricity. – Oddthinking Jul 05 '18 at 13:41
  • @Oddthinking this is the quote from the first sentence "Did you know Victoria’s building code forces people to connect a new house to the gas network? The question is why?". How does that imply electricity – user1605665 Jul 05 '18 at 21:09
  • @gerrit I'm skeptical about this too and would like to get an answer. It doesn't really make sense, e.g. if someone would want to build a house in a remote location, should they also be required to pay for the gas pipe for a long distance? – Communisty Jul 06 '18 at 10:31
  • @Communisty That would be exceptional in NL. Essentially all homes and offices are built by developers as part of large-scale projects. In the rare event to get building permission for a remote building (like a national park visitor centre) I'm sure they will successfully apply for an exemption. We don't have a lot of remote places. Either way, the requirement was [abolished per 1 July 2018](https://www.gawalo.nl/energie/nieuws/2018/05/gasaansluitplicht-voor-nieuwbouw-vervalt-definitief-vanaf-1-juli-2018-1016157) and apparently turned into a *ban* on connecting gas. – gerrit Jul 06 '18 at 10:55
  • I think this entire question is based on a misunderstanding of a terribly written article. I would encourage you to find another source to show notability. The article explains that you do NOT need to get gas connected if gas is not available to the area, so the question title is misleading (as @Communisty's comment shows). – Oddthinking Jul 10 '18 at 12:18

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