@Judy Eddington, You are quite right about the level of preservative in sauce but I can assure you, it can still go off as I found only a few weeks ago. I kind of compare opened food products a bit like cooked or uncooked food, the facts now are that you should put hot product straight into the fridge to avoid bacteria building up and yet in the past we all waited till the food was cool before we refrigerated. So with condiments, I like to refrigerate for the same reason.

chookchook2 - we have linoleum in our kitchen. 10 years on, still looks great, easy to clean, forgiving underfoot and dropped items don't always break :) Love it so much, we will be using it throughout our new beach house (except bathrooms). Try searching Forbo Marmoleum - the colours alone are eye candy, and you may find a link to a state rep.

Hi, our fridge sits out about 20mm (the depth of the doors) just enough for the doors to open fully. You'll need them to do this if you want to get your shelves out to clean. I don't mind it. It's not an eyesore. Also, from looking at your fridge it's got an icemaker or filtered tap. Make sure the cut off tap for your plumbing is accessible from the cupboard next to it, preferably next to the powerpoint. The last thing you want to have to do is pull the fridge out to turn the tap or power off. Mine is accessible from the cupboard above the fridge. Hope this is helpful.

There's a move away from gas to the extent that new suburbs where I live are not even being provided with gas mains. Evap cooling when we researched some time back required some windows open and I remember people complaining about that during last summer's smoke. Regardless of which systems you choose, I could not agree more with oklouise, start with good solar passive design and insulation, that's the most efficient way of reducing the reliance on and cost of heating and cooling systems.