Commercial / General electrical
Commercial switchboard upgrades
Make room for the way you use power today. We assess ageing switchboards, circuit protection and the capacity needed for new equipment.
Local electricians · Clear advice · Ongoing support
Why boards need replacing
- No spare capacity. The board is physically full and there is nowhere to add a circuit.
- The supply is at its limit, so new load would overload the main switch even if there were room.
- The board no longer meets current standards, which becomes a live issue at sale, lease or insurance renewal.
- Ageing components. Contactors, breakers and busbar connections wear, and heat is the warning sign.
- Poor or missing documentation, which makes every subsequent job slower and riskier.
- It cannot accommodate solar, storage or EV charging without modification.
Staging it so the site keeps trading
This is the hard part of commercial board work, and it is where most of the planning goes. Very few businesses can shut down for a day while a board is changed, so the changeover has to be broken into stages.
- Survey and designWe record every existing circuit, what it feeds and what it draws, then design the new board with the capacity you need plus headroom for what is coming.
- Prepare off-lineAs much as possible is built and prepared before any outage, so the time on site with power off is as short as it can be.
- Staged changeoverCircuits are transferred in groups, often overnight or across several nights, with temporary supplies where a load genuinely cannot be interrupted.
- Test, label and documentFull testing, a properly labelled board and an as-built schedule, so the next person to work on it is not guessing.
Labelling is not a nicety. A board where every circuit is correctly identified saves hours on every future job and prevents the wrong thing being isolated in an emergency. We leave a schedule you can actually use.
Metering and tenancies
Where a site has multiple tenancies, a board upgrade is the natural point to sort out metering so each tenancy is billed for what it actually uses. Retrofitting that later is considerably more disruptive.
Preparing for solar and EV
If solar, battery storage or EV charging are anywhere on your plan, say so before the board is designed. Building in the capacity now costs very little. Adding it afterwards can mean doing the work twice.
Good to know
Your questions, answered.
How much downtime will we have?
Less than people fear, if it is staged properly. Many upgrades are done across several overnight windows with no loss of trading hours at all.
Can you upgrade the board without upgrading the supply?
Sometimes. Whether the incoming supply also needs work depends on the load you are adding. We establish that before quoting. See electrical infrastructure upgrades.
Will we get documentation?
Yes. Testing certification and an as-built circuit schedule, which your insurer and any future contractor will want.
Can this be done in stages to spread the cost?
Often yes, depending on the board and the site. We will set out what can sensibly be deferred and what cannot.
Let’s talk about your project.
Tell us your suburb, priorities and the work you have in mind. We’ll help you take the next step.