Appliances connected and certified, and flood-affected installations properly inspected before anything is relit. An appliance that has been under water can light normally and still have a compromised safety control.
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This is the Hawkesbury floodplain, and it changes one thing about gas work that matters more than anything else on this page: after water has been through a property, the gas cannot simply be turned back on.
An appliance that has been submerged has had water in places you cannot inspect from the outside. Control valves, regulators, thermocouples, ignition components and burner assemblies are all affected, silt and contaminants remain after the water drains, and corrosion begins straight away. The dangerous part is that none of that necessarily stops it working. A flooded appliance can light, run and look entirely normal while a safety control inside it no longer does its job.
So the correct sequence after inundation is inspection first, then recommissioning, then a certificate. Not relight and see. That applies to the fixed installation as much as to the appliances, and where a meter or regulator has been under water it is a matter for the gas supplier as well.
The other flood detail people learn the hard way concerns bottles. A 45kg LPG cylinder that is not full is buoyant. In moving water it lifts off its stand and travels, tearing the connection as it goes, which leaves damaged pipework at your place and a loose gas cylinder somewhere downstream. Restraint is not housekeeping here.
Get everyone out, leave the switches alone, and shut it off at the meter or the bottle valve. With LPG, move away from low ground rather than standing at the back door.
Open up, get everybody outside, and touch nothing electrical on the way. Ring from outdoors.
Turn the supply off if you can reach it safely: the meter for natural gas, the bottle valves for LPG.
A licensed gas fitter answers when you ring us, and where the network's emergency crew is the right first call we will say so.
Water reaches the parts of a gas appliance that exist to keep it safe: the control valve, the ignition, the flame failure device and the internal wiring.
An appliance that has been under water may light and run and still have lost the safety functions that are supposed to shut it down when something goes wrong.
So it is not a question of whether it works. It is a question of what has stopped working invisibly, and that needs an inspection rather than a trial.
It is easy to think of flood damage as belonging to the things that plug in. The pipework, the regulator, the meter and the fittings were all under the same water.
Silt and debris get into places they should not be, and fittings that were sound can be compromised by what floodwater carried into them.
So the installation gets tested as a whole rather than appliance by appliance after a flood.
A 45kg cylinder with gas drawn out of it is buoyant, and floodwater will lift it if it is not properly restrained.
A floating cylinder still connected to a line is a genuinely serious situation, and it is the reason restraint requirements exist rather than being a tidiness rule.
If your bottles are on a stand without proper restraint, that is worth fixing before a wet season rather than after one.
Leave the gas isolated. Do not relight anything, including a hot water unit, and do not assume an appliance that looks fine is fine.
Get the installation inspected and tested before anything is turned back on, and get the appliances assessed individually.
That order is not caution for its own sake. It is because the failures a flood causes are invisible and they are in the safety devices.
Reticulated natural gas reaches parts of this district and not others, and a great deal of the rural area runs on bottled LPG.
A meter with a service line from the street is natural gas. Bottles on a stand is LPG, and the two are not interchangeable in any appliance.
It is worth establishing before any conversation about appliances, and it takes one look.
Most of what we do here is not flood work: cooktops and ovens connected, heaters serviced, hot water units installed, new points run and old ones decommissioned.
Flood preparation is a part of this district rather than the whole of it, and the everyday work is the same as everywhere else.
It is worth saying, because a page about flooding can make an ordinary job sound complicated.
Adding an appliance is a calculation against total demand rather than a connection, and on LPG the regulator and cylinder capacity come into it alongside the pipe.
The input rating on the appliance plate is the number the calculation runs on, and a photograph of it is enough to start.
On acreage the length of the run from the bottles to the house matters as well, because pressure falls along it.
Pipe sized for the run and the load, tested to pressure, appliances installed to the manufacturer's instructions with the required clearances, flueing that discharges where it should, and ventilation suited to the gas and the space.
None of it is visible once the job is finished, which is exactly why the certificate matters.
After a flood, that documented baseline is also what an assessor and an insurer will want to see.
Legally required, issued by the licensed gasfitter, and the only durable proof that the work was done by somebody entitled to do it and tested afterwards.
Keep it with the property papers, and in a flood district keep it somewhere that will survive a flood. A photograph stored off the property is the simplest version of that.
It is what an insurer asks for after an incident, and in this district that question comes up more often than elsewhere.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. Indicative 2026 Sydney ranges for guidance, not quotes, and the compliance certificate is included in every one of them.
The installation isolated and put under pressure, with the result explained.
Onto a point already there and confirmed correct for the gas you actually have.
Installation and appliances assessed, serviceable items recommissioned and certified.
Traced, repaired and retested. On a long rural run, locating is most of the work.
Issued and lodged on every gas job. Never a separate line on our invoice.
Two questions before the appliance. The second one changes the job from a repair into an inspection.
The whole installation comes off supply and goes under pressure, rather than just relighting the appliance somebody rang about.
Work to AS/NZS 5601. Where a flooded appliance is not safely serviceable we will tell you that plainly rather than relight it.
Certificate issued, lodged, copy to you with the invoice. After a flood, keep it with the rest of your paperwork.
Leave the gas off and do not relight anything, including the hot water. Ring us and we will inspect the installation before it goes back into service.
Call 1300 381 569Get everyone outside. Do not touch a light switch, a power point or anything else that could spark, and do not use a phone inside. Once you are out, turn the gas off: at the meter if you are on mains, or at the valve on top of the bottle if you are on LPG. Then ring from a distance. If the smell is strong, ring the gas emergency line first and us second. LPG is heavier than air and collects in low ground, so with bottled gas get well clear rather than standing near the house.
No, and this is the most important thing on this page. An appliance that has been submerged must be inspected by a licensed gas fitter before it is used again. Water gets into places you cannot see: control valves, regulators, thermocouples, ignition components and burner assemblies. Silt and contaminants stay behind after the water has drained, and corrosion starts immediately. An appliance can appear to light and run perfectly and still have a compromised safety control, which is precisely the failure you would never notice until it mattered. The same applies to the installation itself, not just the appliances.
If a gas meter or its regulator has been under water, that is a matter for your gas supplier as well as for a gas fitter, and it should be reported rather than assumed to be fine. Regulators contain a diaphragm and a vent, and water in either changes how the regulator controls pressure. Do not turn a submerged installation back on to see what happens. Leave it isolated and get it looked at.
Yes, and it catches people out. A 45kg bottle that is not full is buoyant, and in moving floodwater it will lift off its stand and go with the current, dragging or tearing the connection as it does. That leaves a damaged line at your property and a gas cylinder loose somewhere downstream. Bottles are required to be restrained anyway, and on a flood-prone block that requirement is doing real work rather than just satisfying a rule. If you have warning of rising water and it is safe to do so, turning the bottles off at the valve is worth the two minutes.
Yes, without exception, and that applies equally to LPG. Connecting an appliance, reconnecting one after a flood, altering a run or commissioning a point is all licensed work. Unlicensed gas work voids home insurance, which after a flood is the last thing you want to discover. Our licence number is 368473C and it goes on every quote before you accept it.
It is the document a licensed gas fitter issues certifying the work meets AS/NZS 5601. In New South Wales it is lodged and a copy comes to you. It matters at sale, because a conveyancer asks for it, and at claim, because an insurer asks for it. After a flood it matters more than usual: the certificate covering the inspection and recommissioning of your installation is the record that the work was done properly, and it is exactly what an insurer will want to see. It is included in every gas job we do.
Yes. Bring the appliance and its installation instructions, and tell us whether you are on mains gas or bottles and what else in the house runs on gas. Those answers decide whether the job is a straight connection or a connection plus work on the run, and settling them at the booking rather than at the door avoids a second visit.
Tell us whether you are on mains gas or bottles, and whether the property has been through water. That second answer changes the job entirely and it is the one people forget to say.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts, and a compliance certificate on every job.
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