Complex issues: how to get your apartment block off gas – before it’s too late

Electrifying apartment blocks can cut emissions and save money, but it requires cooperation from neighbours and the owners corporation.

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Around Australia, homes are getting off gas. Gas cooktops are being swapped for induction stoves, gas hot water replaced by heat pumps, and gas space heating with reverse cycle air conditioners. In combination with solar panels, batteries and better insulation, electrification saves money, cuts emissions and makes homes healthier to live in.

Electrifying a freestanding house is often straightforward. Apartments are more challenging because you generally need your neighbours’ cooperation. “It’s relatively easy for an individual apartment owner to replace a gas cooktop with an induction stove,” says Luke Barry, an engineer at GHD.

Replacing centralised gas-fired facilities like hot water heaters, swimming pool heaters, or HVAC systems requires action by the organisation that manages common property in a building, known in some states as the owners corporation and in others as the strata corporation or body corporate.

“Usually in energy efficiency you are dealing either with owner-occupiers or with tenants and their landlords,” says Trent Jones, founder and managing director of All Electric Homes. “But in an apartment complex you also have a third actor to contend with – the owners corporation and its elected committee.”