1985
The brown suit
When I left school in the mid-80s I had a crack at banking. Let’s just say it wasn’t for me.
Dad wasn’t one to let me drift, so he sat me down and told me to go and get a trade. Best thing he ever did, though I didn’t know it at the time.
So off I went to a job interview. Here’s the embarrassing bit: I turned up in brown trousers, a beige jacket, a brown tie and a white shirt. The full brown getup. I was the only young fella who rocked up dressed like that. It was the 80s. What can I say.
Somehow they still took me on. I started my apprenticeship with Elwood Plumbing and Roofing, later Mr Plumber, under Bruce Elwood himself. If you’re old enough you’ll remember the jingles. Back then plumbing and gas were the one trade, so I learned both.
The old gasworks
Learning to think, not just to follow a manual
Partway through my apprenticeship I went to work for the Auckland Gas Company, down at the old Beaumont Street gasworks. They’d just finished switching the whole city from coal gas to natural gas, a massive job. The blokes there really knew their stuff. Most of them were from the UK, where they’re called gas engineers, and that’s the level they worked at.
I learnt gas on the maintenance side. Inside people’s homes, central heating, the old califonts with their diaphragms. We had the Housing New Zealand contract too, so I worked in a lot of state houses, in all sorts of conditions.
That grounding was gold. It taught me to problem-solve, to think around a problem rather than follow a manual. Forty years on, it’s still the most useful thing I’ve got.
Any gas fitter can swap a part or install an appliance. The trick is working out why it went wrong in the first place.
Where gas met boats
Bottled gas, in cramped little spaces
By the end of my apprenticeship I was spending every spare hour sailing and around boats. Then something lucky happened.
The Gas Company set up an LPG division, servicing appliances on boats and trawlers. Bottled gas, in cramped little spaces, out on the water. Right up my alley. I jumped in with both feet, and that’s where I started to specialise in the fiddly world of LPG appliances.
Gas on a boat is nothing like gas in a house. Small closed cabins, movement, salt, and bottles instead of mains. Same standard, different conditions, and it needs someone who understands the quirks. I got hooked. All these years later, gas work on boats and in motorhomes is still my favourite work.
The big OE
A Kiwi gas fitter let loose in London
Like every young Kiwi back then, once I’d finished my apprenticeship I headed off on my OE, straight to London.
I worked as a gas fitter over there for a while with British Gas, then landed a job with a quantity surveyor looking after engineering services on new builds, including one of the tallest buildings in London at the time.
It opened my eyes. Different gas, different heating systems, a whole different way of doing things. When you only ever work one way, you think that’s the only way. Travelling knocked that out of me, and I came home a better tradesman for it.
Sydney to Hobart
What gas does at sea
While I was overseas, and back and forth to New Zealand for the sailing seasons, I got to do something pretty special: delivering boats around the world and racing them. Sydney to Hobart, across the Atlantic, the lot.
Living on boats taught me how gas really behaves at sea, and something important with it. Appliances built for the UK or Europe don’t just drop into a Kiwi boat and work. Different gas, different set-up. You get sooting, poor burning, and worse if you’re not careful.
That’s stuck with me. When someone has an imported caravan or boat, I know to look twice at the gas, because what was fine over there isn’t always fine here.
Tuscany
The best lesson I ever learned, and it wasn’t about gas
In Europe I got into the holiday and tourism game with the Elite Vacanze Group. Big resort campgrounds, some holding two and a half thousand people. Nightclubs, bars, pools, right in the middle of Tuscany. And rows of mobile homes, little self-contained houses with gas, plumbing and kitchens, all needing connecting up.
But the real education was the people side. In hospitality you learn fast: be flexible, be kind, and see things from the customer’s side rather than your own. That’s the whole job, really.
I carry that into every gas job now. You’re not a number to me. I’d rather explain it plainly, give you honest advice, and treat you like a neighbour.
2009
Home, and a catch I didn’t see coming
After years away I came home to New Zealand for good in 2009. Time to settle back into the trade. Simple, right? Not quite.
While I’d been away the gas rules had changed, and there was a catch. Years earlier I’d sat my Craftsman gas exam and, if I’m honest, I hadn’t put the study in and didn’t pass it. So there I was, an experienced plumber and gas fitter, without the one certificate that would let me do gas here on my own.
And I’ve always wanted to work for myself. So I had a choice: go and work for someone else, or find another way in.
Callgas and Mr Sizzle
How barbecues got me back in business
I was at a place called the Barbecue Factory, about to buy a barbecue, and I looked at the wall of them and thought: who services all these?
Turns out that with portable LPG gear, barbecues, cabinet heaters, those little gas fridges, all running off the 9kg bottle, I could work away legally while I studied for my certification.
So I set up two outfits, Callgas and Mr Sizzle, and got cracking. Troubleshooting, bringing barbecues up to compliance, and doing warranty work for the big brands. It was a gap in the market and it got me back on my own two feet.
Sometimes you’ve just got to find the door that’s open.
2019
The phone call, and the cafe
Just when Callgas and Mr Sizzle were ticking along, I got a call out of the blue from Mr Plumber, the very company I’d started my apprenticeship with. They asked me to come and run their gas fitting. I looked after the apprentices, ran the whole gas side, and did that right through to 2019.
Mentoring the young tradies reminded me how I started, brown suit and all, and how much a good grounding matters. The trade only stays good if the people coming through are taught properly.
Then in 2019 I started forming my own gas company. Things were rolling. Then COVID hit, the work dropped off, and I made the most expensive mistake of my life. I bought a cafe. If you ever want to lose money fast, buy a cafe with no foot traffic.
It wasn’t all bad. I converted some pizza ovens to run on Kiwi LPG and we made pizzas at night with gas. That part was actually pretty cool. But it taught me to stick to what I know and do it well.
The one thing
Why I won’t cut corners
If there’s one thing I’d want you to take from all of this, it’s this one.
Our industry is largely self-certifying, which means a gas fitter signs off their own work. Most do the right thing. But where there’s no one looking over your shoulder, shortcuts can creep in. And with gas, a shortcut can cost someone their life.
I care a lot about carbon monoxide in particular. We’re still too relaxed about it in New Zealand. You can’t see it or smell it, and a poorly burning or unserviced appliance can put it out. I felt strongly enough that I wrote and self-published a little book on why you should get your gas appliances serviced.
So when I do a job, I do it properly and I certify it honestly. No corners. That’s the deal.
Coast Gas today
Where it all landed
After all of it, the brown suit, the gasworks, the boats, London, Tuscany, the barbecues, Mr Plumber, even the cafe, I ended up where I was probably always headed: my own gas business.
Coast Gas has been trading since 2023. These days LPG is the speciality, with natural gas as everyday work. Plenty of safety checks, inspections and certificates, for houses, businesses, boats and RVs. You’ll find me down at Pine Harbour on the boats a fair bit, and right across Auckland most days.
Forty years in, the focus is still the same. Honest advice, a fair go, and keeping your gas safe.