Switchboard upgrades
Ceramic fuses replaced with circuit breakers and safety switches, with capacity left for what you add next.
Electrician Chadstone
Chadstone is about seven kilometres from our Hawthorn East workshop, roughly twenty minutes depending on Warrigal Road.
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- 25 years trading
Chadstone 3148
What goes wrong in Chadstone
Chadstone is mostly post-war housing built around a shopping centre that has grown into one of the largest in the country. The residential and commercial sides of the suburb have almost nothing in common electrically.
1950s and 1960s brick veneer
The bulk of the housing went up in the two decades after the war, wired for a household that had far fewer appliances than yours. Original boards with rewireable fuses are still reasonably common, and where they have been replaced it was usually in the 1980s, which brought circuit breakers but often no residual current device beyond the power points.
Not enough circuits, not just not enough outlets
The limitation in a house of this era is the number of circuits rather than the number of sockets on them. Adding outlets to an already loaded circuit moves the problem rather than solving it. The useful question is what the circuit is carrying before deciding where the new point goes, and sometimes the right answer is a new circuit from the board.
Extensions and converted garages
These blocks lend themselves to rear extensions and garage conversions, and both add load to a board that had no margin to begin with. A converted garage used as a bedroom or office also needs its own properly protected circuit rather than an extension of the one feeding the laundry.
Warrigal Road and the centre precinct
Around the shopping centre there is a working commercial fringe of showrooms, service businesses and offices. Exit and emergency lighting, testing and tagging and lighting upgrades are the steady work here, all of it scheduled outside trading hours where a shutdown would cost the business.
Older commercial lighting
A lot of the showroom and warehouse space in this pocket still runs older high-bay and fluorescent lighting, which is the largest controllable electricity cost most of those sites have. It is worth measuring what is actually installed before anyone recommends a changeover.
Getting to you
Around twenty minutes from Hawthorn East depending on Warrigal Road. Morning faults are normally attended the same day. The phone is answered 24 hours, and for an after-hours call in Chadstone we will give you a realistic arrival time when you ring.
Services in Chadstone
What we are usually called out for here
Power point installation
New outlets, USB points and outdoor weatherproof power, added on a circuit that can carry them.
Commercial lighting
Shop, office and warehouse lighting, including LED changeovers priced around access rather than per fitting.
Test and tag, RCD testing
Portable appliance and safety switch testing on the interval your environment requires.
Electrical repairs and fault finding
Dead circuits, tripping safety switches and power points that run warm, traced to the cause.
Questions
Chadstone questions we get asked
Our Chadstone house still has the original fuse board. Is it dangerous?
It is not an emergency, but it is the oldest part of the house doing the most important job. Rewireable fuses protect the wiring, not the person, because there is no residual current device. It is also full, so anything you want to add depends on replacing it.
Can we just add more power points?
Sometimes, but in a house of this era the constraint is usually the number of circuits rather than the number of sockets. Adding outlets to a loaded circuit moves the problem along. We check what the circuit is already carrying before deciding.
We converted the garage to a bedroom. Does it need its own circuit?
It should have one, properly protected, rather than an extension of the laundry circuit which is what we usually find. A habitable room has different requirements to a garage, and that is worth correcting whether or not anything has gone wrong yet.
Can you upgrade the lighting in a showroom near the centre?
Yes. The first step is measuring what is installed and what it costs to run, because a like for like lamp swap and a properly relit space are different projects with different returns. We work outside trading hours.
How quickly can you reach Chadstone?
About twenty minutes from Hawthorn East, longer if Warrigal Road is busy. Morning faults are usually attended the same day. For an after-hours emergency we will tell you honestly what time we can be there.
Get it sorted
Book a Chadstone electrician
Fastest way to get an answer is the phone. It is answered 24 hours a day, seven days.
03 9889 3341Not urgent? Send the details and we will come back to you within one business day.