Renovation electricians in Sydney

Finding an electrician in Sydney who turns up

The hardest part of getting electrical work done in Sydney is not the work. It is finding someone who shows up when they said they would, tells you the price before they start, and does not leave you chasing them for a certificate afterwards.

Sydney is inside our normal run, as are Sydenham, Sydney, Sydney Olympic Park. We quote the whole job as one number before we start, and we do not charge to come and look at it.

What makes Sydney different to work in

Sydney has the mix you find across a lot of Sydney: older homes still running the board they were built with, sitting next to places that have been renovated two or three times. Both throw up their own problems, and both are jobs we do every week.

Renovating in Sydney is usually when the wiring gets looked at properly for the first time in decades. Better to know before the walls close up.

Wiring a renovation in Sydney

A renovation is the only time the walls are open, which makes it the cheapest moment in the life of a house to fix its wiring. Doing it later means cutting into finished plaster and paying twice.

The common mistake is designing the layout around where the outlets already are. Work out where furniture, benches and appliances will actually go first, then place the outlets. It costs almost nothing extra at rough in stage and everything later.

If the house around Sydney still has its original board or any cloth insulated wiring, a renovation is the point to deal with it. Adding a new kitchen to sixty year old wiring just moves the problem.

What usually causes it around Sydney

Age is the biggest single factor. Wiring installed decades ago was sized for a very different household, and insulation on older cable gets brittle and cracks, particularly in roof spaces that heat up through summer.

Rodents are a genuine cause and an unglamorous one. Possums and rats in the roof chew cable insulation, and the fault that follows can be intermittent and hard to trace.

What renovation wiring costs in Sydney

The real answer is that it depends on the condition of what is already there. That is not a dodge, it is why we come and look before quoting rather than pricing blind over the phone.

What we can promise is the shape of it. We come out and look for nothing, we work out what the job actually needs, and we give you one fixed number for the whole thing. If we find something unexpected once we are into it, we stop and talk to you rather than adding it to the bill. The number you agreed is the number on the invoice.

How we work compared to an hourly rate

An hourly rate puts the risk on you. Every delay, every trip back to the van, every part that turns out to be the wrong one lands on your invoice. That is the opposite of what most people in Sydney actually want, which is to know the number before they say yes.

We price the job, not the time. That means we carry the risk of it taking longer, which is a good incentive for us to turn up prepared. It also means you can say yes or no with the full number in front of you.

What you can safely do yourself

Almost nothing, and that is not us protecting our own work. In New South Wales it is against the law for an unlicensed person to do fixed electrical wiring, and the insurance consequences of a fire traced back to unlicensed work are severe. Replacing a plug top on an appliance or changing a lamp is fine. Anything behind the wall or inside the board is not.

What you can usefully do is narrow it down before you ring. Note which circuit trips, whether it trips straight away or after something specific gets switched on, and whether it started after a storm or a new appliance. That saves time on site.

Renting in Sydney, or managing a building?

If you rent, electrical repairs to the property itself are the owner's responsibility, and urgent electrical faults fall under urgent repairs in New South Wales. Talk to your agent first. If it is genuinely dangerous, say so clearly, because that changes how quickly it has to be dealt with.

If you manage a strata block around Sydney, we can work on common property and bill the body corporate directly, and we can keep the same electrician on your building so nobody is relearning the site every visit.