banning new electric hot water systems 2012

[tornado33]

Recently I found out the government plans to ban installation of electric hot water units by 2012. See here

This is going down a very dangerous and expensive path for just about everyone.

Will I have to replace my currently
working electric hot water system
when the program commences?
No. There will be no requirement to replace a
working electric hot water system. You will
only have to purchase a low emission hot
water system when your current one needs
to be replaced.

I mention this as just today we had to have our electric hot water system replaced, (Rheem 80 litre) at a cost of just over $800. Last night the old one's tank failed, sending water all over the laundry. Even WITH government rebates, alternatives are much more costly.

What would happen when the new unit eventually fails? If we chose Solar, it would mean running pipes through the roof, and other installation hassles. The tradies who installed our new Rheem today told us that if we had solar when we once had cricket ball sized hail, it would have destroyed the solar heating panels.

If we chose gas, then all new gas piping needs to be run, and new water piping as well as the gas unit would have to be relocated outside.

If we chose Electric heat pump, it, too would have to go outside due to limited space in the laundry, and then we whould have the noisy compressor running through the night, needless to mention the much greater complexity over a simple insulated steel cylinder with a heating element and thermostat, which is what our new electric unit is.

By the time the new unit needs replacing (average life 8 years or so) one can bet the government rebates would long have vanished, meaning an $800 water heater would have to be replaced by something costing many thousands. Id have no choice but to go without hot water and get one of those camping showers and put it in the bathroom and use the jug to heat enough water for a shower.

Then theres people in flats and units. No space for alternatives, they need electric hot water units. Though the government says such dwellings will be exempt, if the majority of buildings have electric water heaters banned, manufacturers may stop making them due to lesser demand.

The tradies who installed our new unit also oppose the laws, they say it hasnt been thought through.

The availability of affordable running hot water is a pretty basic right we can expect in western society. It for me will be a major election issue. I dont want to be boiling jugs all the time in the future every time I need hot water, and of course that would surely generate much more greenhouse gas then the electric off peak hot water system we now have. Our hot water bill for last quaterly bill was a measely $83,and thats for mum, dad and I. If I was living here by myself it would be even lower, meaning even less greenhouse gas.

Electric hot water MUST remain available to all.

[renormalised (Carl)]

It's typical of politicians to come out with legislation like this, without thinking at all (let alone thinking it through). What's next??....water metered taps that cutoff your water supply once they reach a prescribed limit...charging you water rates for collecting rainwater in a tank (they do that already up here, to farmers)....ban all light bulbs over 40W and then have it so your electricity cuts off at a prescribed daily usage????. I'll bet they won't put themselves under such stupid restrictions...how many of them will replace their electrical hot water systems with exactly the same type of units. I can tell you now, 100% of them.

Easy way to fix that....vote them out of office and tell those you vote in you'll do the same to them if they introduce nonsense like that.

[AndrewJ]

I wonder if the "supply charge" portions of our bills will come down,
proportional to the amount of electricity we dont get????
Ie last water bill was $175 for $5 worth of water

The whole racket of increasing supply charges for "not supplying" a product is one of the best government sponsored white collar scams going.

Andrew

[Karls48 (Karl)]

That’s why Global Warming scare was godsend to the western world governments. Most of them are basically insolvent and here is an opportunity to increase taxes and cut back on services and population is going to be happy about it because they are saving the planet. Well done.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

An unfortunate circumstance is that I have lived in rented properties most of my life, moved in an out of house I think in total about 15 times.

What I have noticed though is that gas instant hot water was primarily cheaper to run than any system, there are some obvious negatives to it but overall not bad.

One place that proved the most efficient was a house that I owned some time ago, installed a solar hot water system with a wood fire stove with inbuilt booster (semi rural place) quite good.

Electricity though too expensive, whether it it is in relation to power consumption electricity has a much higher hidden cost and that is the damaging effect of coal power station. I don't think we can ignore that it is quite possible the government scientific advisor are correct and need keep and open mind on that policy.

It is not advisable to trust any tradie opinion as especially electricians as they will oppose any changes that will affect their bottom line. I am also a tradie so i can say this without reservation.

I am all for self sufficiency, I would love the opportuinity to live in the country living off the land but we live in a real western world as it is and we need to further understand the implications of what we are doing to the planet if the evidence is there.

One legislation that has a great impact to my business and the community I deal with is, the removal of incandecent globe and replacing them with CFL. As deaf people need flashing light lights to indicate sounds. the removal of these will prohbit this due to long switching times. But they have become accustomed to the idea early and are making changes fairly easily. The same could be said for hot water systems.

[coldspace]

My mate runs a plumbing/hot water buisiness.
He told me that for the extra 4K cost for solar hot water which still needs electric booster here and there it will take you about 25 years to recoup the extra cost over a large electric system which is wired up on night rate off peak, and chances are you will need to replace it after 10 to 15 years anyway.

We are on electric/night rate tarriff with 4 people having 2 showers a day and never run out of hot water and it only costs about 55 bucks 3 month bill. So these politicians don't do their homework,just because they get everything for free.

You don't want heat pump water heaters if you are close to neighbours as they are noisy. My mate has installed heaps of these and is sick of the winging from people mainly in unit blocks about the noise, so he doesn't install them now.

Gas is good if you can afford it and have town gas.

Maybe K.Rudd and friends should stop all the jetting around the place to minimise carbon footprint if they are serious about this stuff and stop making the mere mortals pay for all this.

Regards Matt.

[GrampianStars (Rob)]

Forget about it. Time for Anarchy
Let's live in a functioning society free of government controls.
That is individual persons operating together in harmony based on freely reached agreements concluded between individual members and groups of a society.
No more politicians to come out with legislation.
Oh! and Matt
your mate s ripping you off $4K
A solar panel and an inverter will give you free booster energy for the life of the system

[coldspace]

Originally Posted by GrampianStars

Forget about it. Time for Anarchy
Let's live in a functioning society free of government controls.
That is individual persons operating together in harmony based on freely reached agreements concluded between individual members and groups of a society.
No more politicians to come out with legislation.
Oh! and Matt
your mate s ripping you off $4K
A solar panel and an inverter will give you free booster energy for the life of the system

$4K is mates rate's to rip out my electric system and supply and install 1 x solar system. My house is 2 levels and to change the plumbing from the basement to the roof is a massive job.
Believe me, I got 2 other quotes from 2 companies and they were both over 5K.
You then get 1600 back in rebates so will still be 2400 out.
Not worth it doing when I can changeover to a new electric for under a grand when my system needs replacing.

Add in the cost of a 1kW solar panel/inverter to run the solar water system and this blows it right out of the water.

I am not saying solar water is not good, we had it on my last place for 10 years and it was good, very hot but had to replace it after it rusted out.
But people should have a choice and go with things they can afford for their family i have many friends who could not afford it at the moment if their electric system needed replacing.
I just spent a small car's worth cutting trees down and building my custom observatory so I could afford solar so probally should get it as I have just wrecked my carbon footprint for the next couple of years.
But alot of people can't afford the upgrade and they should have a choice or the government should introduce bigger rebates to make it affordable.

Regards Matt.

[kinetic (Steve)]

Originally Posted by mswhin63

It is not advisable to trust any tradie opinion as especially electricians as they will oppose any changes that will affect their bottom line. I am also a tradie so i can say this without reservation.

Malcolm,
I know you said this in the context of the very best intentions, but
I also offer the advice that sometimes 'tradies' can enlighten you to facts
both good and bad about systems that you just won't get from
anywhere else. Offered with no underlying motives too.

I'm a tradie too btw.

Steve

[tornado33]

I should mention that the tradies who installed our new electric hot water system also do solar installations, so Im assuming they arent biased.

Ever since we got that massive hail storm a few years ago, which made cars in a local shopping center look like they were attacked with a hammer, and hearing the incredible roar of hail falling kilometres away, Im very worried about the damage such hail could do both to hot water and photovoltaic panels on the roof. We had a colourbond roof and even that has slight dings from the hail

Green is great, provided it is affordable. Even more so with the finincial crisis with lots of older ppl losing superannuation, we all need to tighten our belts and can ill afford higher costs of basics like power, hot water and so on.
Cheers
Scott

[theodog (Jeff)]

Originally Posted by coldspace

I just spent a small car's worth cutting trees down and building my custom observatory so I could afford solar so probally should get it as I have just wrecked my carbon footprint for the next couple of years.

Look at planting some fast growing trees somewhere else, should get you back to even.

Originally Posted by kinetic

Malcolm,
.......I also offer the advice that sometimes 'tradies' can enlighten you to facts
both good and bad about systems that you just won't get from
anywhere else.
I'm a tradie too btw.
Steve

Rather trust a tradie over sales rep OR pollie.
I'm a Tradie as well.

Originally Posted by tornado33

Green is great, provided it is affordable. Even more so with the finincial crisis with lots of older ppl losing superannuation, we all need to tighten our belts and can ill afford higher costs of basics like power, hot water and so on.

Get used to it, it looks like that's the way we are being pushed.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Get used to it, it looks like that's the way we are being pushed.

People have gone soft. They let pollies stand over them and have been doing so for quite some time. Push back!!!!. Put their jobs on the line and you'll see how quickly they'll change their minds.

[marki]

Viva la revolution :bash comp: .


Mark

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Have had a solar hot water for well over 25 years. I replaced the solar collector about 5 years ago. Not only does it work very well, it is good for the environment. I also have solar power for about 7 years.
Think it about people if eveyone used less power and power became expensive maybe they would start turning off street lights.

BTW, I can't help asking one of the posters said that everyone in their house has two showers a day, what on earth are you doing to make yourself dirty over night?........

[Jules76 (Julian)]

Not singling out any one person in particular, but I love it how people seem to automatically focus on the negatives of such an initiative without putting it into perspective. I like playing "devil's advocate" so I'll put in my two cents to get people thinking.

Firslty, the cost. What's to say that in 3 years time, the cost to build/install Solar hot water systems won't come down? Besides how many people are going to need to replace their current electric hot water system within say the next 10 years? Sure there's going to be cases where people will, but the majority will still be powering along. In in that time when they eventually do need replacing, 10 years is a good amount of time for prices to drop regardless if there is a rebate or not.

And regarding hail damage. Seriously, how often does it hail, and not only that, but be heavy enough to actually cause damage? Sure I live in Brisbane now, but I grew up and spent most of my life in Adelaide so I know what a "real" winter is like. But in saying that, Brisbane does have it's share of big storms. Then there's this thing called insurance.

Anyway that's just my two cents. It always annoys me when changes are made and people instantly jump up and down and only see the negatives as if the sky is now falling. And then later down the track after the dust has settled, it's not actually as bad as people first thought.

Food for thought.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Ok....we'll see what happens when they do ban replacing these hot water systems. Let' see if the prices come down on solar and whether the pollies will put a decent rebate on their cost. A great many people can't afford one now and in order to be able to afford one, they'll have to subsidise them to the same extent as electrical heaters. I don't think so.

We'll see after 3-5 years, just how many people are grumbling about it. Then we can make a fair appraisal on the merits of the legislation. There are far better ways of cutting back GHG emissions and curtailing power usage than banning replacing electrical hot water systems.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Well they are goin' to do it so we either need to get over it and let hope the older systems keep running for many years and you don't need to replace it.

Hopefully if I was to get a new house, I know I would go for either solar or gas, never electric. I heard that you can even get gas booster.

If I get into a rural or semi rural area I more than will go for wind generator too but I know that at least I won't fret over the fact that I can't buy an electric hot water system, even a CFL globes seeing my wife uses LED and strobes now. Managed to cut the enormous electricity bill too. $300 p/bill to $170.

I dont really think we can blame the gverment as they are following the advice of science.

[mac (Matt)]

In NZ the government is banning high pressure water cylinders in new installations, to try to conserve water and electricity.

[renormalised (Carl)]

You know how they can conserve more electricity than thinking of hitting the little guy all the time.....replace all street lighting with low wattage, directed lights and make office building turn their lights off and only use minimal security lighting....and that starts with their own little palaces.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by renormalised

You know how they can conserve more electricity than thinking of hitting the little guy all the time.....replace all street lighting with low wattage, directed lights and make office building turn their lights off and only use minimal security lighting....and that starts with their own little palaces.

Maybe that is something that can be put to the government. Light police, especially in office buildings. I wonder if Astronomers would gladly take on the role.

I actually find it offensive that council allow a light to shine into my bedroom all night.

(best create a new thread on this one)