EV-Ready and All-Electric: Designing Your Gold Coast Home for What’s Coming

More of the homes I design now are being planned without gas, with solar and a battery, and with a spot in the garage already wired for a car charger. It isn’t because anyone’s forcing it — for a detached Gold Coast home, none of this is required — it’s because building it in now is far cheaper than adding it later, and the direction of travel is obvious.

If you’re building or renovating, here’s a straight explanation of what “EV-ready” and “all-electric” actually mean at the design stage, what the rules do and don’t require, and what’s genuinely worth planning in.

First, the rules — because there’s a lot of noise

Let me clear this up, because there’s confusion out there:

• The National Construction Code’s EV-charging “readiness” requirements apply to apartment and commercial car parks — not to detached houses. For your own home on its own block, EV charging is not mandated.
• Proposed residential changes, including EV-charging provisions for new homes, have been paused and are not progressing as part of the finalised NCC 2025 content. So for a detached Gold Coast house, I’d treat EV-charging readiness as a voluntary future-proofing decision, not a current house-building mandate.
• And all-electric (no gas) is not mandated in Queensland for detached homes either. Victoria has moved further toward all-electric new buildings, but Queensland has not introduced an equivalent detached-home gas ban.

So this is a choice, not a compliance job. Which is exactly why it’s worth understanding — the homeowners who benefit are the ones who decide deliberately, early.

Why design for it now, even though you don’t have to

The case is simple: the infrastructure is cheap while the walls are open and expensive once they’re closed.

• Running a conduit and circuit to the garage for a future EV charger during construction costs very little. Retrofitting it — chasing walls, upgrading the board, trenching — costs many times more.
• Sizing the switchboard with spare capacity now means solar, a battery, an induction cooktop, a heat-pump hot water system and a car charger can all be added over time without a costly upgrade.
• Designing the roof and orientation for solar (and leaving space for a battery and inverter) means the home is ready the day you decide to add them.

You don’t have to install any of it on day one. You just design so the home can accept it cheaply whenever you choose.

All-electric: the running-cost logic

Going all-electric — induction cooking, heat-pump hot water, reverse-cycle climate — paired with solar and a battery is increasingly about running cost, not ideology. You stop paying a gas supply charge, and you run as much of the home as possible off your own roof. It also dovetails with the energy performance the Code already requires of new homes: our guides to the NCC 7-star energy rating and the NatHERS rating explain that side, and our sustainable home design guide ties it together for the Gold Coast climate.

What I plan in at the design stage

When a client wants an EV-ready, all-electric or solar-ready home, my job is to make sure the home can carry it without a future renovation:

1. Switchboard located and sized with real spare capacity for the loads you’re likely to add.
2. A dedicated circuit and conduit to the garage or carport for an EV charger.
3. Roof, orientation and space planned for solar panels, an inverter and a battery.
4. All-electric provisioning — the right circuits for induction, heat-pump hot water and climate, so there’s no gas dependency to design around.
5. Coordination so none of it fights the structure, the energy rating, or the smart-home wiring if you’re planning that too.

Because I cost a design against how it’s built, all of this is weighed into the plan and budget up front — not discovered later as an expensive change.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to install an EV charger in my new Gold Coast home?

No. For a detached house it isn’t required, and proposed national requirements for homes have been paused. The smart move is to make the home ready — wire for it — even if you don’t install the charger yet.

Is it worth wiring for an EV charger if I don’t own an electric car?

Usually yes, because the cost is small during construction and large to retrofit. It’s cheap insurance against a likely future, and it can help resale.

Can I go all-electric and still have a comfortable home on the Gold Coast?

Yes. Induction cooking, heat-pump hot water and reverse-cycle climate are mainstream and efficient. Paired with solar, an all-electric home is often cheaper to run than a mixed gas-and-electric one.

Can you make an existing home EV-ready or all-electric in a renovation?

Yes — and a renovation is the ideal time, while walls and the switchboard are accessible. It needs to be planned into the renovation design rather than tacked on.

The takeaway

You don’t have to build an all-electric, EV-ready home on the Gold Coast — but it’s getting harder to find a reason not to design for it. The infrastructure is cheap now and dear later, the running-cost case keeps strengthening, and the market, technology and long-term planning logic are all moving in that direction. Build the readiness in; add the rest when it suits you.

If you’re planning a new home or a renovation and want it ready for an electric, low-running-cost future, Request a Consultation and we’ll design it in from the start.