House without mains gas - how easy/'cheap' to connect 0.2 miles?

Oranjeboom

Hi All,

I know this has been covered a bit on these forums (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/10941267#Comment_10941267 etc) but what I am after is not costings between LPG, solar, oil etc, but the actual practicalities of having mains gas supplied via an extesion of the current network.

We're interested in a house which is nestled between 6-10 other houses in the country. It's just under 0.2miles (320m) from the nearest gas pipe. What's the likely cost to have this network extension done? Obviously pretty darn expensive but if there is sufficient demand by the other houses it may be worth looking into. Obviously I wouldn't want to cough up 50k on my lonesome for all the neighbours to then change their minds to tap into 'my' pipe a few months later!

It seems like I would contact the local network company that owns the infrastructure and ask them to give me a quote.

And there are other infrastructure companies who can now also quote for the work. It's a fairly small distance and would only involve digging up one farmers field...but when it comes to doing the work I know what seems 'cheap' at first quickly ends up costing a fortune.

Does anyone have experience of having this done?

I'm not too bothered about not having mains gas but I know some folk will not touch a house without it (I am thinking resale in 5-10yrs time). Currently the house relies on gas bottles for central heating and stove. I'd probably switch to an oil tank and gamble on the oil prices and also consider solar.

Thanks!

G_M

I doubt you'll get the right sort of expertise on this board.

Try the gas/electricity board here.

But yes, you'll need a price from the network supplier, and an idea how many neighbours might be interested.

edit: putting "new gas connection" into the search function at DIYNOT threw up some discussion...

Better_Days

I looked into this when I was considering a property I viewed which is currently heated by warm air although there is gas in the road.

As far as I could see you need to be the owner of the property to get a quote of how much Transco would charge to connect. Not a lot of good if you are considering putting in an offer. I suppose you could ask the vendor to get a quote, but I seem to recall Transco do make a charge.

As there were lots of other issues with the property I didn't pursue it any further - it was too big a variable.

kkgree1

I think the main issue is getting enough neighbours on board to make the gas connection worthwhile. I know Transco came to our village two years ago (before we moved there) to gather interest from villagers to warrant putting mains gas through the village. They had about 4 people turn up in a village of 2,500! I would love mains gas but we've learnt to live with oil, with careful budgeting (it is 3 times the cost of what we paid for gas though!).