Newcastle has a lot of older housing stock, and a lot of switchboards that were fine for a 1970s household and aren't fine for a solar and battery system. It's the single most frequent cause of unexpected costs in an install.
Signs yours may need work
- Ceramic rewireable fuses rather than circuit breakers.
- No safety switches (RCDs) on the circuits.
- An enclosure with no spare space for new breakers or isolation.
- Visible heat damage, corrosion, or wiring that's clearly been added to over the years.
- Asbestos backing board, common in homes of a certain age.
What an upgrade involves
A new enclosure, modern circuit breakers and safety switches, proper labelling, and space and isolation for the solar and battery equipment. Where the meter panel is involved, there's network paperwork too. It's typically a same-day job alongside the install.
Why it's worth doing at install time
The board has to be opened up anyway, an electrician is already on site, and the work is coordinated with a single power interruption. Doing it later as a standalone job costs more and means going without power a second time.
Getting it priced honestly
We assess the switchboard during the site visit, before quoting. If it needs work it goes in the quote as a line item you can see. What we won't do is quote low, start the install and then tell you it's an extra grand to finish.
This is the only category of general electrical work we take on — it's part of doing a solar or battery job properly. We're not a general electrical contractor.
Want this applied to your house?
Our estimator gives you an indicative system size and savings figure in a couple of minutes — then we confirm it against your actual bills.
Get your estimate