Essendon is one of the oldest parts of Melbourne's inner north-west, and it shows in the wiring. Between the Victorian and Edwardian homes off Buckley Street, the California bungalows on the side streets around Napier Street, and the newer townhouses along Mt Alexander Road, there is just about every era of Australian electrical work in the one suburb — often in the one house. We work across all of it: period places that still have original cable in the roof, renovations that need new circuits without wrecking decorative plaster, and newer builds that just need it done properly.
- Period home rewires
- Switchboard & RCD upgrades
- Downlights & feature lighting
- Renovation rough-in & fit-off
- Power points & USB outlets
- Smoke alarm compliance
The period homes are the ones that surprise people. A lot of Essendon's Victorian and Edwardian houses have had power added in stages over eighty or ninety years, so it is common to find a modern kitchen circuit running back to a board that still has ceramic rewireable fuses and no safety switches at all. Up in the roof space, the original rubber-insulated cable from the mid-century has usually gone brittle — it looks fine sitting there until someone moves it.
The other thing that is specific to Essendon is ceilings. Pressed metal, decorative plaster roses and ornate cornices are worth keeping, and they do not take kindly to a downlight template and a hole saw. We plan lighting around what is already there — surface mounts, pendants that use the existing rose, or downlights set out to work with the ceiling instead of straight through the middle of it. If something cannot be done without damage, we say so before we start rather than after.
Yes, and a good part of our Essendon work is exactly that. Older homes need a different approach: we look at what access there is through the roof cavity and under the floor before quoting, because that determines whether we can run new cable without opening up walls and ceilings. Where a wall does have to be chased, we tell you upfront so you can line up a plasterer and painter. We are also happy to work in stages if you would rather spread the cost — doing the switchboard and the highest-risk circuits first, then the rest later, rather than the whole house at once.
It is worth moving on, and here is the honest reason why. A ceramic rewireable fuse protects the wiring from overload, but it does nothing to protect a person. Safety switches (RCDs) are the part that cuts power fast enough to prevent a fatal shock if someone contacts a live conductor — a kid with a screwdriver, a nail through a cable, a failing appliance. Homes wired before RCDs became mandatory simply do not have that layer. We can usually replace the board and get RCDs onto every circuit in a day, with the power off for only part of it.
Often yes, but it depends on the ceiling and we will look before promising. With pressed metal or ornate plaster we usually suggest working with the ceiling rather than cutting into it — using the existing rose for a pendant, adding wall lights or surface-mounted fittings, or setting downlights into the flatter perimeter sections away from the detail. If you do want downlights through a decorative ceiling, we will show you exactly where they would land and what the cuts involve first, so you can make the call rather than find out afterwards.
Yes, most of our renovation work runs that way. Electrical on a reno happens in two visits: a rough-in once the framing is up and before the walls are lined, where we run all the cable and fix the position of every point, switch and light, and a fit-off after the plaster is painted, where everything gets installed and tested. We deal with the builder or project manager directly instead of asking you to pass messages along, and we shift our dates when the build runs behind — which on a renovation it usually does at some point.
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