Cooktops, heaters and gas lines fitted, tested and certified in one visit, and appliances that ended up in rooms they should not be in dealt with properly.
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An unflued gas appliance burns gas and releases the products of combustion straight into the room it is standing in. That is how it is designed to work, and it is why an unflued gas appliance is not permitted in a bedroom or a bathroom.
In housing that has been around for decades, we still find them. Not because anybody decided to install a heater in a bedroom, but because the room used to be something else. A lounge becomes a bedroom when a family grows, the heater stays exactly where it was fitted, and nobody ever thought about it again.
Telling the two apart is not difficult. A flued appliance has a duct or a pipe taking combustion products outside, and you can usually see it at the back or above. An unflued one has nothing behind it at all. If you are not sure, a photo answers it.
This is not a reason to panic and we are not going to write it as one. It is a reason to stop using it and ring. Disconnecting properly and capping the point is licensed work, it takes one visit, and it comes with a certificate. Then we can talk about what heating is actually permitted in that room.
No switches, no phones indoors. Turn it off at the meter only if you can reach it safely, then ring from outside.
Open up, get out, and ring from the footpath. It takes seconds and it removes almost all of the risk.
Do not operate anything electrical on the way past. That includes switching a light off, which is as much of a spark as switching one on.
Turn the supply off at the meter only if you can reach it safely. It is not worth walking through a stronger smell to get to a tap.
An unflued gas heater discharges its products of combustion into the space it is heating. That is how the appliance is designed to work rather than a defect in it, and it is why ventilation requirements exist for the rooms they are used in.
It is also why they are not permitted in a bedroom or a bathroom. Those are the rooms where somebody sleeps or where a door stays shut, and both remove the ventilation the appliance depends on.
This is not a new rule and it is not a controversial one. What is common is housing where the appliance predates anybody thinking about it.
A lounge becomes a bedroom when a family grows. A sunroom becomes a study and then a spare room. A garage gets closed in. The heater on the wall does not move and nobody reconsiders it.
That is how a perfectly legal installation from 1974 ends up in a room where it is no longer allowed, without anybody having done anything wrong at any point.
It is worth a look if the use of a room in your house has changed and there is a gas appliance in it. That is the whole check.
Look for a duct, pipe or flue taking combustion products out through the wall or the roof. If there is one, the appliance is flued and its exhaust is going outside.
If the appliance simply sits against a wall with nothing leaving it, it is unflued and everything it produces is entering the room.
You do not need to be certain. If you are not sure what you are looking at, a photograph sent through settles it in a minute and costs nobody anything.
Unflued heaters are approved on the basis of a stated room volume and a stated amount of fixed ventilation. Vents in a wall or a permanently open gap at a door are there to satisfy that.
Sealing them up is the other common way a compliant installation stops being one. It happens for entirely reasonable reasons, usually draughts or a renovation.
So if the room has been sealed, insulated or reworked around an unflued appliance, that is worth mentioning when you book.
Making a disused gas point safe is a gas job. It gets capped properly, the line gets tested, and it gets certified, and none of that is a favour from whoever happens to be on site.
It is also cheap and quick. Decommissioning a point nobody uses is a short visit and it removes the possibility permanently.
Do not leave a live capped-off point behind a new wall or under new flooring. If a renovation is covering something up, deal with the point first.
Adding an appliance is a calculation against total demand rather than a connection. The line has a capacity, the meter has a capacity, and a new cooktop or continuous flow unit has to fit inside both with everything else still running.
Where it does not, the symptom is appliances starving each other. A burner that drops off whenever somebody runs a shower is almost always this rather than a faulty appliance.
Doing the sums first is most of the difference between an installation that works and a callback that gets blamed on the equipment.
Every gas job finishes with a compliance certificate. It records who did the work, that they held a licence to do it, and that the installation met the standard on the day.
Keep it with the property papers. It is what an insurer asks for after an incident and what a conveyancer eventually asks for at sale, and it cannot be recreated later.
If you have had gas work done and never received one, that is worth chasing up. It is not paperwork for its own sake.
Pipe sized for the run and the load, tested to pressure, appliances installed to the manufacturer's instructions with the clearances that apply, flueing that discharges where it is meant to, and ventilation appropriate to the appliance and the room.
None of that is visible once the job is finished, which is exactly why the certificate matters. It is the record of the parts nobody can inspect afterwards.
It is also why unlicensed gas work is not worth the saving. Nothing about it looks different on the day and the fault it creates does not announce itself.
A bayonet socket in a wall is a legitimate connection and it is very common in housing of this period. The appliance plugged into it is where the questions are.
A portable unflued heater on a bayonet is subject to the same room restrictions as a fixed one, because the appliance does not know it is portable. Moving it into a bedroom for winter is the common mistake.
The sockets themselves are worth checking if they are old. A worn bayonet that no longer seals properly on the plug is a leak at the moment of connection.
Fixed price agreed before anything starts. These are indicative 2026 ranges.
Tested, made safe properly, and certified.
Connected, tested and certified in one visit.
Priced on the run rather than by the hour.
With the compliance certificate handed over.
Made safe at any hour, with the cause established afterwards.
Whether an appliance is flued, and what its data plate says, are both answerable from a picture before anybody drives out.
What is connected, where it sits, and whether the room it is in is a room it is permitted in.
Fitted to the Australian Standards, or properly disconnected and capped where that is what the situation calls for.
The Certificate of Compliance in your hand before we leave, including for a disconnection.
Get outside, leave the switches alone, and ring. A licensed gas fitter can be on the way immediately.
Call 1300 381 569If it is unflued, no. An unflued gas appliance burns gas and releases the products of combustion into the room it is in, and that is why they are not permitted in bedrooms or bathrooms. It is a straightforward rule and it exists for a straightforward reason.
A flued appliance has a duct or pipe taking the combustion products outside, usually visible at the back or above it. An unflued one has nothing: it sits against a wall with no external connection at all. If you are unsure, send us a photo and we will tell you.
Stop using it and ring. It is not a reason to panic, and it is a reason to act rather than to keep meaning to. We can disconnect it properly and cap the point, and if you want heating in that room we can talk about what is actually permitted there.
Because appliances get moved and rooms change use over decades. A room that was a lounge becomes a bedroom, and the heater stays exactly where it was. Nobody made a decision, it simply happened one renovation at a time.
A real job, and licensed work. Disconnecting and making a point safe is gas fitting, it gets done properly rather than by whoever is on site, and it carries a compliance certificate like anything else.
Everyone outside first. No light switches, nothing electrical, no phone used indoors. Turn the supply off at the meter only if you can reach it safely, then ring from outside.
Disconnecting an appliance and capping the point is $180 to $400. An appliance connection is $200 to $500. A new gas point is $500 to $1,200. A leak test and certificate is $180 to $350.
Tell us what the appliance is and what room it is in. If there is nothing connected behind a heater and it is in a bedroom, say so first and we will treat it accordingly.
Installed or made safe, tested and certified, at the figure agreed first.
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