Sydney winters are short yet sharply cold. When temperatures dip, thousands of households reach for the wall furnace or ducted gas system that has been silent since last August. If that heater lights first try and stays lit, great. If it splutters, gives off a faint odour or sounds louder than last year, the warning signs are already there.
When winter edges closer, a gas heater can feel like the easiest way to keep a home comfortable. But “working” isn’t the same as “working safely”. A heater that lights and warms a room can still be running inefficiently, producing unpleasant odours, or creating risks that are easy to miss until they escalate.
Sydney’s winter can swing from mild to biting in a week, so heaters often get ignored until the first cold night.
In parts of Australia where mains gas isn’t available, and electricity prices are climbing, more homeowners are turning to LPG. Not just as a backup, but as their main source of heat, hot water, and cooking fuel.
It always starts small — a damp spot on the wall, a bit of mould creeping along the grout, a soft patch in the floorboards just outside the bathroom. At first, you might shrug it off. But speaking from experience, that’s when the damage is already underway.