Quick answer
From 1 January 2027 new Victorian homes must be built all-electric. From 1 March 2027 a rental provider whose heating breaks and cannot be repaired must replace it with an efficient reverse cycle air conditioner in the main living area, and owner-occupiers must replace broken gas hot water with electric. Owner-occupiers do not have to replace gas space heating. The HVAC opportunity is landlords, plus a choice-led pitch to homeowners using the VEU discount.
People keep calling it the Victoria gas phase out. For air conditioning businesses that phrase is half right and half dangerous. Some of the 2027 rules force a switch to electric. Some only apply when something breaks. And one of the biggest groups, owner-occupiers with gas ducted heating, is not forced to do anything at all.
If your ads say "gas heating is being banned", you will get complaints, and you will deserve them. If your ads say nothing, you will miss the biggest change to the Victorian heating market in years. This post sets out what Energy Victoria's standards page actually says, then how we would market each part.
We are a Sydney agency, and we are not taking Melbourne clients yet. We wrote this because Victorian installers ask, and because the rules are specific enough to get wrong.
What is changing in Victoria from 2027?
From January 2027 new homes and commercial buildings in Victoria must be built all-electric. From 1 March 2027 broken gas hot water in owner-occupied homes must be replaced with electric, and rental providers face new heating, hot water and cooling standards. By 1 July 2030 every rental needs efficient electric cooling in the living area.
Here is the timeline, as Energy Victoria lists it:
| Date | Who it applies to | What the rule says | What it means for HVAC |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 January 2027 | New homes and commercial buildings | Must be built all-electric (not industrial or agricultural buildings, or existing commercial buildings) | New-build heating is electric: builder and volume-home work, not homeowner ads |
| 1 March 2027 | Existing owner-occupiers | Broken gas hot water that cannot be repaired must be replaced with an electric alternative. No requirement to upgrade gas space heating | Heat pump hot water work. Space heating stays a choice |
| 1 March 2027 | Rental providers | Broken heating or hot water that cannot be repaired replaced with a heat pump water heater or an efficient reverse cycle air conditioner in the main living area. Energy-efficient cooling in the living area at a new lease | Landlords become a real buyer of reverse cycle systems |
| 1 July 2030 | All rental properties | Efficient electric cooling in the living area, regardless of lease status | A deadline landlords can plan a job around |
The same page also lists 4-star showerheads and R5.0 ceiling insulation for rentals from 1 March 2027, and draughtproofing from 1 July 2027. Those are not aircon jobs, but a landlord hearing about them is a landlord thinking about compliance.
Is Victoria banning gas heating in existing homes?
No. Energy Victoria says there is no requirement for existing owner-occupiers to upgrade gas space heating or gas cooking to electric, although it encourages them to. The forced changes for owner-occupiers stop at gas hot water that breaks and cannot be repaired. A homeowner with working gas ducted heating can keep it.
This is the line most likely to be overstated in ads, so it is worth being blunt. "Gas ducted is being phased out" is not true for a homeowner in Ringwood with a working furnace. "The gas ban is coming, replace now" is a scare line, and any homeowner who reads the rules will catch it.
What you can say truthfully to an owner-occupier:
- New Victorian homes are being built all-electric from 2027.
- Energy Victoria encourages existing homeowners to move off gas to lower their bills.
- There is an upfront VEU discount of up to $1,610 on an efficient reverse cycle air conditioner, usually when replacing an older appliance.
- A reverse cycle system heats and cools, and a gas ducted heater only heats.
That is a strong pitch without a single false claim in it.
What does the rental heating rule actually require?
From 1 March 2027, when a heating appliance in a Victorian rental breaks and cannot be repaired, the rental provider must replace it with an efficient electric reverse cycle air conditioner in the main living area. The rule is triggered by a failure that cannot be fixed. A working heater, or one that can be repaired, is not caught.
Three words in that rule do a lot of work.
"Cannot be repaired." A landlord with a 20 year old wall furnace that still runs is not obliged to touch it. The job arrives when it fails, and a heater is most likely to be found broken in the cold months, when it is actually being used.
"Main living area." The rule is about the living area, not every room. That points to a single high-wall split or a well-placed multi-head, not necessarily a whole-house ducted system. Do not promise landlords that a whole-home ducted install is required.
"Efficient." Energy Victoria's page does not list the efficiency standard in its summary. Before a star rating or model list goes into an ad or a landing page, check the detailed standard. Until then, say "an efficient reverse cycle system that meets the rental standard", and let the installer confirm the model at the site visit.
Who is the new buyer: landlords or homeowners?
Both, but they need different ads. Landlords and property managers buy to comply, on a deadline, often with a failed heater and a tenant waiting. Owner-occupiers buy by choice, for comfort and running costs, with the VEU discount as the prompt. Mixing the two in one campaign muddies both messages.
Our Melbourne HVAC marketing page covers the city's housing mix, including how many households rent. Every one of those rentals is a property where heating failure now has a defined fix.
How to market to landlords and property managers
The landlord sale is closer to a service contract than a comfort sale. What they want to hear:
- Speed. A tenant without heat in July is a problem the landlord wants gone this week. A dated install slot is the offer.
- Compliance in writing. The quote states the system meets the rental standard for the main living area.
- One contact for many doors. A property manager with a large rent roll is worth more than any single landlord. An ad aimed at property managers, and a landing page that takes a list of addresses, is a different funnel from a homeowner one.
- Plan ahead of 2030. Every rental needs efficient electric cooling in the living area by 1 July 2030. A landlord who replaces a failed heater with reverse cycle in 2027 covers the heating fix and the cooling requirement in one install.
For a landlord campaign, the ownership question in the qualifier flips. In Sydney we usually filter renters out. In Victoria the question has to separate tenants (not your buyer) from rental providers and property managers (your buyer). Our guide to qualifying air conditioning leads covers the six questions; the Victorian version changes the answer options, not the idea.
How to market gas ducted replacement to owner-occupiers
The homeowner sale is a choice. The pitch is: your gas ducted system only heats, it is probably old, reverse cycle ducted heats and cools, and there is an upfront discount if you replace an older appliance.
That is the ducted replacement sale we write about in how to sell $10,000+ ducted jobs online, with a Victorian twist: the old system being replaced is usually a gas furnace, not a tired first-generation reverse cycle unit. The ad does not need a rule to lean on. The winter bill, the summer heat and the discount do the work.
How does the VEU discount fit into ads?
Victorian Energy Upgrades takes a discount off the quote for efficient appliances. Energy Victoria says it can save up to $1,610 upfront on an efficient reverse cycle air conditioner, usually when an older appliance is replaced with an approved model. Because it comes off the quote, it works as an ad offer.
Energy Victoria's VEU page says "discounts are applied upfront, so you only pay the remaining amount". That is the line to borrow. Three rules for using it:
- Always "up to". The amount depends on the product and the job. Never put "$1,610 off" in an ad without "up to".
- Replacement is the normal case. An owner with an old gas heater or an ageing split is the natural fit.
- Confirm at the site visit. The installer quotes the real figure. The landing page says so.
For comparison, the NSW air conditioner incentive is an upfront discount of up to $550 for a new 6kW system, or $560 when replacing an old unit with a 6kW split. We cover how Sydney installers use it in our NSW ESS guide. The Victorian figure is roughly three times bigger, which makes it the stronger hook.
What should a Victorian HVAC business do before March 2027?
Get the landlord side ready before the first cold snap of 2027: a property manager offer, a compliance line on every rental quote, a qualifier that tells tenants from landlords, and install capacity held for failed-heater jobs in winter. For homeowners, run the VEU replacement offer through autumn and winter as a choice, not a warning.
A short list we would work through with any Victorian installer:
- Read the standard, not the headline. Print the Energy Victoria page and the detailed rental standard. Every ad line should trace back to one of them.
- Split the campaigns. One for owner-occupiers (choice, VEU, comfort), one for rental providers and property managers (compliance, speed, 2030).
- Build a property manager list. Local agencies managing rent rolls in your area are the highest-value contacts in this market.
- Hold winter slots. Failed-heater jobs cluster in the cold months. A landlord who waits two weeks for an install will find someone who does not make them wait.
- Price the living-area job. Have a clear, fixed-scope price for the main living area reverse cycle install. It will be the most quoted job in the landlord funnel.
- Keep homeowner ads honest. No "ban", no "forced", no "deadline" for owner-occupier gas heating.
Worked example: what one property manager could be worth (labelled assumptions, not data)
Assume a property manager looks after 150 rentals in your area. This is an illustration, not a figure we have measured.
Assume 1 in 20 of those rentals has a heater fail beyond repair in a given year: 150 รท 20 = about 7 or 8 jobs a year.
Each of those is a main living area reverse cycle install the rental provider must do under the March 2027 rule.
Separately, every one of the 150 needs efficient electric cooling in the living area by 1 July 2030. Any rental that does not have it already is a job before that date.
Compare a homeowner campaign on our Sydney planning numbers: $7,000 all-in a month ($3,000 fee plus $4,000 ad spend across Meta and Google) for about 12 to 13 booked quotes, about $550 each. One property manager relationship could be worth several booked quotes a year without a single ad click.
Swap in the real rent roll and failure rate for your area. The point is the shape, not the numbers.
Where does Scale Theory fit in Victoria?
We are Sydney first, and Melbourne is a waitlist. We have no clients yet anywhere, so we will not sell Victorian territories until we can show dated Sydney results. When Melbourne opens, we would run the two-campaign setup above through the same system we use in Sydney.
That system is the same everywhere: Meta ads and Google Search ads built around a real offer, a suburb landing page, a six-question qualifier, a reply inside 60 seconds, a booked quote in the diary, follow-up on days 1, 3 and 7, and a weekly report. A booked quote is a qualified homeowner, or in Victoria a qualified rental provider, booked in for an in-home quote, in your diary, with a time. How we change the message by season is laid out on our air conditioning marketing page.
One honest limit. Our ads lead with ducted and whole-home replacement, and we do not advertise single-room splits. For owner-occupiers that means gas ducted to reverse cycle ducted. On the landlord side, a single living-area system is a small job, so we would sell it to property managers by the rent roll, not one unit at a time through ads.
The one-line version for your team: new homes are all-electric, broken rental heaters become reverse cycle, broken gas hot water becomes electric, and homeowners with working gas heating choose for themselves. Market each of those as what it is.
If you are a Victorian installer and want to be on the list, book an audit and tell us where you are. We will tell you straight whether your area is likely to open, and when.
Sources
Sam
Sam runs every audit and buys every ad. Before going HVAC-only, he ran Scale Theory as a performance marketing agency: SEO, Meta and Google ads, CRM automation.
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