Gas hob, cooktop & gas fire installation in Christchurch

What we install

• Gas hobs and cooktops. Drop-in units into a benchtop, on natural gas or LPG, including the cut-out check and clearances to surrounding cabinetry.
• Freestanding gas ranges. Smeg, Fisher & Paykel, Belling and the rest — connected, levelled, tested and certified.
• Gas fires and space heaters, flued and unflued, including flue installation and the clearances to hearth, mantel and adjacent walls.
• Outdoor and barbecue connections, including bayonet points so you're not dragging a bottle around.
• Bottle installations and regulator work where the property runs on LPG.

What's involved, and why it isn't a DIY job

Connecting a gas appliance is gasfitting work, and by law it has to be done by someone registered with the PGDB. That isn't red tape for its own sake: a badly installed appliance can leak gas, or burn incompletely and produce carbon monoxide, which you can't smell.

A proper install covers more than the connection itself:

1. Checking the gas supply can carry it. Adding a hob to a house that already runs gas hot water and a gas fire can mean the existing line isn't sized for the extra load. This is the step that gets skipped most often.
2. Getting the appliance to the right gas type. An appliance built for natural gas will not run correctly on LPG without conversion, and vice versa.
3. Clearances and ventilation. Distance to combustible surfaces, and enough air for the appliance to burn cleanly — particularly with fires and anything unflued.
4. Flueing, where it applies, so combustion products go outside and stay outside.
5. Pressure testing, commissioning and flame check — a crisp blue flame, burning the way the manufacturer intended.
6. The certificate. We issue the gas safety certificate for the work, so you have the paperwork for your records, your insurer, or the eventual sale of the house.

Buying the appliance

You're welcome to buy your own — plenty of people find a deal on the range they want, and we're happy to install a customer-supplied appliance. Two things worth checking before you pay: that it's the right gas type for your property (or convertible), and that it's approved for sale in New Zealand. Grey-import appliances sometimes can't be legally connected here, and finding that out on install day is nobody's good day.

We can also supply through our trade accounts with Mico and Plumbing World, which sometimes lands better than retail, and means one point of contact if anything goes wrong under warranty.

Replacing an existing appliance

Straight swaps are usually the quickest job we do — old unit out, new unit in, tested and certified, often inside a couple of hours. Where it takes longer is when the old appliance is being replaced by something with a different footprint or a higher gas demand, or when we open it up and find the original install wasn't done properly. We'll tell you what we've found and what it'll take before we carry on.