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Speaker 1: Now, if you are a regular listener to the show

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Speaker 1: and your house users gas, you'll have heard me telling

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Speaker 1: you might want to think about switching to electricity, or

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Speaker 1: maybe switching your gas provider or whatever. And that's because

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Speaker 1: we're running out of gas right And two days ago

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Speaker 1: we got the news that Contact is putting up prices

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Speaker 1: by about seventeen percent for thousands of people who use gas.

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Speaker 1: Master Plumber CEO Greg Wallace thinks though, that switching to

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Speaker 1: electricity might not be the right decision for everyone, and

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Speaker 1: he's with us now, Hi.

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Speaker 2: Greg, Oh, good afternoon, Heather.

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Speaker 1: Why not.

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Speaker 2: Look, it's the capital cost so we're getting I mean,

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Speaker 2: let me be clear though, we're not against heap hump

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Speaker 2: hot water technology. We're not against solar, and there's electra.

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Speaker 2: It's horses for courses and people have to make decisions.

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Speaker 2: Two tear market though, just need to remember are remind

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Speaker 2: listeners that LPG in the South Island no shortage of

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Speaker 2: LPG at all. Yes, there's some price pressure for that,

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Speaker 2: but no shortage of LPG. And we do have LPG

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Speaker 2: reticulated in some places in the South Island. What we're

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Speaker 2: doing is inundated with consumers investigating, particularly about heat pump

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Speaker 2: hot water. But the costs are anything between five and

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Speaker 2: a half to ten thousand dollars to change over. So

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Speaker 2: that capital investment is a considerable investment, and that payback

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Speaker 2: takes some time. How long so well, we estimate that

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Speaker 2: would be about five years for most people to get

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Speaker 2: that payback on that capital investment of heat pump hot water. Now,

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Speaker 2: heat pump's great, it's a big tank. It has to

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Speaker 2: go somewhere. Unfortunately, most of our cylinders are in the seventies, eighties,

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Speaker 2: and nineties were all installed in the middle of the

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Speaker 2: house with a linen cupboard, and to retrofit that is

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Speaker 2: pretty expensive. You've got to have space for it, and

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Speaker 2: you've got to have that the usage because you're actually

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Speaker 2: heating a lot of water. You're heating up to three

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Speaker 2: hundred and twenty liters of water, and so if you're

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Speaker 2: a couple, that may not be your best choice. If

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Speaker 2: you're a low use of usage of hot water.

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Speaker 1: Trouble is right, So you can you can you can

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Speaker 1: do it now and then you can get your You'll

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Speaker 1: you'll be breaking even in five years, or you can

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Speaker 1: wait for five years and then do it and then

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Speaker 1: you've wasted all your money on gas for the last

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Speaker 1: five years. Look again, gas is not going to get

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Speaker 1: cheaper at any point ever in the future, is it.

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Speaker 2: No? And but my point is also is electricity going

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Speaker 2: to remain the same or we're going to have the

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Speaker 2: same without a gas and a competitive energy sector, whereas

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Speaker 2: the electricity price is going to go hither. The other

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Speaker 2: point is biogas is real, and so in Denmark this

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Speaker 2: year they will produce it close to forty five percent

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Speaker 2: of biogas, and that is taking the food scraps and

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Speaker 2: we've got one plant in Central North Island and we've

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Speaker 2: got another plant opening in christ Church. There's taking food

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Speaker 2: scraps that don't go to landfall and turning that into biogas,

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Speaker 2: and that can go straight into the natural gas pipeline.

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Speaker 2: Now Denmark by twenty thirty, one hundred percent of their

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Speaker 2: gas will come from biogas. We should be investing in

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Speaker 2: that technology.

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Speaker 1: But that's also sort of unicorn stuff at the moment,

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Speaker 1: isn't it, Like that's not real if you if you're

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Speaker 1: sitting there and I appreciate your enthusiasm about it, but

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Speaker 1: at the moment, if you're thinking about switching saving money

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Speaker 1: electricity is this is a different thing altogether, Can I

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Speaker 1: ask you? So I've got in my house in the lounge,

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Speaker 1: I've got one of those those heat is a gas

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Speaker 1: heater that's supposed to look like a real fireplace, you know,

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Speaker 1: the one that's got the little like loggy things, and

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Speaker 1: it looks it's sort of a courzy and stuff. Should

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Speaker 1: I be thinking about ripping that out and putting something

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Speaker 1: electric in there?

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Speaker 2: If you've got gas connected? Now that actually that device

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Speaker 2: is actually very energy efficient to hit your home. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and so they're more.

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Speaker 1: Energy efficient than some electric system would have been.

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Speaker 2: Well, you can put a white box on the on

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Speaker 2: the wall in that heat pump the ambience, yes, okay,

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Speaker 2: and that will be more energy efficient. But the gas

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Speaker 2: flame effect fire that you've got a very energy efficient Okay.

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Speaker 1: As you say, you can get the sort of the

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Speaker 1: sexy romance with the.

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Speaker 2: Flame that's important in your health.

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Speaker 1: Now, you can't quantify that, like you can't say how

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Speaker 1: much that's worth. Okay, what about if you want to

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Speaker 1: disconnect gas? That in and of itself, greg is hugely expensive,

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Speaker 1: isn't it just turning it off?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Again, And so misinformation South Island LPG and so

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Speaker 2: no disconnection fees because they use bottles. North Island US,

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Speaker 2: there's some disconnection fees there. I mean, I just also

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Speaker 2: want to point out that we're going to the holiday period.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of people that have cribs, batchers and

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Speaker 2: holiday homes, and we've got a big Airbnb rental in

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Speaker 2: the market now. For those homes that aren't used for

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Speaker 2: one hundred percent of the time, storing hot water is

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Speaker 2: again not a sensible option, and so having Guess or

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Speaker 2: an infinity or integrity system is actually a good choice

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Speaker 2: for those people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Actually, that's a fair point that you make, although Greg,

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Speaker 1: don't forget in a natural disaster, I'm going to be

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Speaker 1: drinking water out of my hot water cylinder and what

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Speaker 1: are you going to be drinking.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to have my stormwater that I've stored on

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Speaker 2: the side of my house and I can just open

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Speaker 2: the tech.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're already prepared for it. I like that, Greg,

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Speaker 1: Thanks very much, mate, look after yourself. Greg Wallace, Master

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Speaker 1: Plumber's CEO. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays,

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