Victorian Energy Upgrades (VEU) Heating and Cooling Upgrades in the Macedon Ranges

What the VEU program means for a Macedon Ranges home

The Victorian Energy Upgrades program gives households and businesses a discount on efficient reverse cycle heating and cooling when it replaces an older, less efficient system. For most homes in the Ranges the upgrade that matters is replacing a gas ducted heater with a ducted reverse cycle system: one system that heats through the long winter and cools through summer, running on electricity rather than gas.

There is a simpler way to think about it, in Curtis’s words: “You can offset a power bill with solar and batteries. You can’t do the same with your gas bill.” An efficient electric system can run on power you generate; a gas heater never will.

Under the program only accredited providers can apply the discount, and it is applied at the time of the upgrade rather than claimed afterwards. VEU rebate administration for Macedon Ranges Gas & Air projects is processed under Melbourne Gas & Air, another trading name of the same legal entity; the accreditation details that apply to your job are shown in your written quote. What the program does not do is design your system. That part is ours, and it is where a VEU upgrade either becomes the best thing you have done to the house or an expensive disappointment.

The upgrades we do under the program

Gas ducted heating to ducted reverse cycle. The whole-home conversion. It involves removing the gas heater, installing a new ducted reverse cycle system with new, correctly insulated ductwork and outlets designed for its airflow, and deciding what happens to the evaporative cooler: it can stay, or be removed, depending on its condition and what you want, and we advise after inspecting it. We do not reuse gas heating ductwork for a reverse cycle system. How a gas to electric conversion works.

Old air conditioner to an efficient split or multi-head system. Replacing an ageing reverse cycle unit, or electric resistance heaters, with a new high-efficiency split system, or a multi-head system that covers several rooms from one outdoor unit.

Single-room gas heater to a split system. A gas wall furnace or space heater replaced with a reverse cycle split that heats and cools the room.

How the process works with us

1. Enquire. Tell us what you have now and which rooms matter. Our form asks the questions that decide eligibility and system type.
2. Site visit. We inspect the existing heater and ductwork, measure the home, talk about how you live in it, and confirm which upgrade types the program is likely to cover for you.
3. Written quote. The system, the ductwork decision, what is removed, the discount as confirmed against the current program rules, and the price you pay.
4. Installation. Our own team removes and decommissions the old system, installs the new one, commissions it and documents the work the program requires.
5. After. The 9 year labour and workmanship warranty on our installation, the manufacturer’s warranty on the equipment, and one number to call.

Why design matters more than the discount

The discount is the same whether the system is designed properly or not. What changes is whether the house is comfortable, whether the running costs are what you expected, and whether the equipment lasts. Reverse cycle systems move more air at lower temperatures than gas heaters, so duct size, duct insulation, return air, outlet size and placement and zoning all decide the result. We treat a VEU upgrade as a system design job that happens to carry a discount, not the other way round.

Braemar Dominator and the VEU program

The Braemar Dominator is a specific product designed as a direct replacement for a gas ducted heater for heaters mounted outside the house or under the floor. It is one of the options we assess, and our ductwork standard applies to it as well. It is a product-specific pathway with its own conditions, and it is not how every VEU conversion works. We explain the difference at the site visit so you can compare a direct replacement against a full ducted conversion on your own house.

Eligibility, without the guesswork

The program has rules about the product being replaced, its age, how it is decommissioned and what replaces it, and they change from time to time. Our eligibility page explains them in plain language with the date we last checked them, and we confirm your situation before you commit to anything.